Mergers and acquisitions, and investment activity is reportedly set to increase next year.

That's according to Drake Star Partners – as reported by Axios – which says that it expects that big game companies will be snapping up more firms in 2024. The outfit reckons that many of the usual suspects – Tencent, Sony, Take-Two and Saudi Arabia's Savvy – will be behind a lot of this activity. Drake Star also says that, perhaps unsurprisingly, the troubled Embracer Group will continue to sell off studios.

"Based on our discussions with many of the top gaming companies in the last weeks, we expect the deal volume to increase steadily over the next year," Drake Star partner Michael Metzger said.

This predicted merger and acquisitions boom comes amid a much more unstable business landscape.

"While it is true that it is harder for founders to raise an early stage round and even harder to raise a growth/late stage round compared to 2021, it is also true that we have never had more gaming-focused VC funds than now," Metzger said.

He continued: "Valuations have come down, but that also makes it more attractive for VCs to invest now in the future unicorns."