The Download – July 2026

Scopely’s acquisition of Turkish mobile game developer Loom for a billion dollars was eye-catching for many reasons: the price tag, the confirmation of Turkey as a global mobile gaming hub and the ongoing influence of Saudi Arabian-backed game businesses on the market. But the biggest reason the deal attracted such attention is that Loom had existed for less than a year at the time of acquisition. Even in a challenging market, companies with great games that can scale like Pixel Flow can attract serious commercial interest.

The management team of CCP Games, the creators of EVE: Online, bought itself out of Pearl Abyss, the Korean MMO publisher, with the help of an intriguing partner. Google DeepMind supported CCP’s buyout and rebrand to Fenris Creations, so it could gain access to a version of EVE’s enormous online world for training purposes. Considering DeepMind demonstrated its potential by training its model to play Atari games in the early 2010s, this deal shows the ongoing value of using virtual worlds to prove real-world value.

Mobile attribution firm AppsFlyer, which is integral to the operation of the mobile advertising industry powering the games sector, raised a $1bn Series E round with the support of an unlikely coalition of rival businesses. Meta, Google, Unity and Moloco put aside their competitive differences to invest in the business, with the intention of maintaining AppsFlyer as an independent arbiter of advertising clicks and installs across the ecosystem. This is an intriguing example of businesses pulling together to prevent essential ‘neutral’ infrastructure from falling into the hands of a single owner.

UK publisher PlayStack is set to sell 84.5% of its business for £112m to VantageCo, a subsidiary of private equity group Integrated Media Company (IMC). The price tag is justified by the publisher’s recent successes, epitomised by indie hit Balatro. But the deal attracted attention because IMC also owns media brands like Fandom and GameSpot which could cover PlayStack’s releases. Both companies have sought to reassure gamers that the deal will compromise neither PlayStack nor IMC’s media portfolio.

Finally, video game intellectual property has become hot property in film and TV following the success of the Sonic films, this year’s Super Mario Galaxy Movie and the adaptation of The Last of Us. But will Roblox experiences translate effectively to other screen sectors too? Animation firm Baobab is taking that bet after acquiring rights to produce feature-length animations based on three popular games on the platform: Natural Disaster Survival, Barry’s Prison Run and Deepwoken. Time will tell if Roblox-first IP can make a splash elsewhere.

These deals show there is still plenty of value within the global games industry, particularly the still-growing mobile game market. But as much of the sector matures, maximising the value of IP, providing spillover benefits to other technology sectors and demonstrating the power of video games as a media form of its own are great ways to unlock investment opportunities in a tough landscape.

Rob Husband, Partner at Moore Kingston Smith

Moore Kingston Smith is organising a private roundtable about the state of video game publishing in September. If you’d like to attend, please contact Rodrigo Cerqueira.

Develop: Brighton

Finally, we’ll be at Develop Conference in Brighton next week. If you’d like to talk to us about our services for video game businesses, get in touch with Rob Kersse or Rob Husband.