Games industry projected to go up to $186B in 2026 | Konvoy

Konvoy this week released its Gaming Industry Report for the first quarter of 2025, where it revealed more information about trends in the industry, including venture capital deals and mergers and acquisitions across the globe. According to the report, Konvoy predicts that the games industry will be worth $186 billion in 2026, a 4.7% increase year-over-year. It also shows information on the major deals in the industry, as well as the effects of the escalating detente between the U.S. and China.

The company reports that the games industry saw 43 mergers and acquisition transactions in Q1, with the two largest being Scopely’s $3.5 billion acquisition of Niantic’s gaming division, and Modern Times Group’s $620 million acquisition of Plarium. It also notes that there were 77 VC deals in this quarter — which was a 6% decrease from the previous quarter. However, the total amount of VC funding was $373 million, which was a 35% increase quarter-over-quarter.

Josh Chapman, Konvoy managing partner, told GamesBeat in an interview, “In the first quarter of 2025, North America saw 53% of the gaming investment vs Asia which saw only 33% of the total investment capital in the sector. The third runner up is Europe, yet we see almost zero investment or deal activity out of Africa, South America, or Australia. The reason for that is largely due to there not being local investment groups, because there are game companies in those regions but no local capital groups to build up the local deal market. Looking ahead, we are very confident that NA, Asia, and EU will remain the core locations for gaming investment and deal activity.”

One of the other major takeaways from the report concerns the U.S.’s ban on Chinese entities, including the effect it had on games such as Marvel Snap and Clash of Clans. Konvoy adds that it expects the U.S.’s scrutiny over entities in countries such as China to increase, and that this has the potential to have a large impact on the industry given how China is involved in gaming. It also noted that Ubisoft is the latest gaming entity to accept money from a Tencent, a Chinese conglomerate.

GamesBeat asked Chapman about the tensions between the two entities, and he responded, “The tension for US/China revolves around US games requiring a gate-keeper in China and the games out of China having open-entry to the US market. This imbalance, alongside the TikTok tensions, is the source of the trade tensions and how it relates to the gaming industry.”

Konvoy’s complete Gaming Industry Report includes regional insights and is now available on the company’s website.