And it looks to stay that way for years to come. Industry money, from private equity investments to IPO’s and big-bank-backing to M&A’s have reached all-time highs. There’s so much investment capital in the industry now that even the Middle East and Africa are getting in on the action.

A newly released report from GlobalData estimates the global mobile gaming industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11% through 2030, resulting in a valuation of $272 billion. The report covers mobile based gaming only and does not include console, PC or “other” types of video gaming platforms.

In just 5 years’ time, that number is expected to nearly double to $300 billion. The industry is on fire, growing rapidly as savvy companies and investors stand to increase their market-share and net-worth accordingly.

The acquisition gives Facebook a much stronger footprint in the sector with free-to-play games and, most importantly, the game creation and sharing tool developed by Unit 2, Crayta. According to Vivek Sharma, VP of Facebook Gaming, the initial concept of Crayta was to “democratize game creation, empowering more people than ever before to make, play and share games, regardless of experience or background.”

In just the first five months alone, 2021 has brought over $49 billion in deals across 527 investments, public offerings and acquisitions.  The industry is now on pace to reach or break $100 billion in deals, for the year.

In the late 1990’s, Jason Kapalka was working at Total Entertainment Network, an online gaming company that allowed PC gamers to compete head-to-head with other gamers across their dial-up internet connections.

The industry now has more unicorns, or startups with valuations topping $1 billion, than ever before.  The total value of the gaming unicorn universe now sits at $192.2 billion. According to Evan Van Zelfden, founder of Games One, there is still a good pipeline of video game companies that are headed towards IPO’s or acquisitions. 

It’s been reported that the company is in search of an executive to head up expansion into gaming; one of the fastest growth opportunities globally. In a report published by “The Information”, Netflix has approached numerous “veteran game industry execs” in its hunt for leadership in their new venture.

Over the past year, the site has recorded a 34% year-over-year increase in users identifying as gamers.  With roughly 172 million monthly visitors, and 3 billion monthly views, gaming is now Reddit’s top category.

A total of 1,671 deals, valued at over $360 billion has occurred in just Q1 of 2021 alone. This represents more than a doubling in dollar value, y-o-y, with total volume of deals rising by nearly 30%.  This is the highest total dollar value of private equity deals since the second quarter of 2007.