Weekly News Digest #30

InvestGame tracked 7 deals worth $640m this week (excl. rumoured deal). The full list is on the platform.

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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

[RUMOUR] US-listed mobile games company Playtika (NASDAQ: PLTK) is in talks to sell Israel-based casual games developer SuperPlay to China-based Tencent (HKG: 0700) at a valuation up to $1.5B, according to Calcalist. Playtika acquired SuperPlay in Nov’24 for $700m in cash plus an earnout of up to $1.25B tied to 2025-2027 performance and a $50m retention plan. The studio has outgrown that plan: revenue reached $573m in 2025, about 67% above the earnout baseline, lifting Playtika’s estimated contingent payment to the founders to $829m as of Q1’26 from $734m at the 2025 year-end. The reported price excludes that liability, which Tencent would assume, easing a balance sheet facing roughly $2.3B of debt maturing in 2028 and 2029. SuperPlay was founded by former Playtika employees Eyal Netzer and Gilad Almog with industry veteran Elad Drory. The company publishes Dice Dreams, Domino Dreams, and the 2025 hit Disney Solitaire. Playtika opened a review of strategic alternatives in Apr’26. Neither company has commented on the news.

Canada-based mobile games developer Alpha Dog Games has completed a management buyout from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) for an undisclosed sum, returning to independent ownership under co-founders Shawn Woods and Jeff Cameron. According to co-founder Shawn Woods, the studio became independent in May’25, though the buyout was only publicly confirmed this week, on Jul 22. Founded in 2012, the studio was acquired by Bethesda Softworks in 2019, passed to Microsoft inside the $7.5B acquisition of ZeniMax Media in 2021, and was shut down in May’24 alongside Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. It is best known for the mobile action title Mighty DOOM, whose servers closed in Aug’24. Woods says the team has kept updating the Unity-based engine framework the game ran on and is in conversations with partners, publishers, and licensors.

VENTURE FINANCING

US and China-based AI gaming tech company Meshy has raised nearly $400m in a Series B round at a $1.5B post-money valuation. The round was co-led by IDG Capital, Matrix Partners China, and Monolith Management, with existing shareholders Granite Asia, HongShan, BAI Capital, and Source Code Capital all oversubscribing their pro-rata. Meshy turns text and image prompts into production-ready 3D models, textures, and animations, cutting the art time a studio spends on asset creation. It integrates with Unity, Unreal Engine, Blender, and Godot, and game companies including Nexon, NetEase, and 37 Interactive Entertainment build with it. Founded in 2021 by CEO Ethan Hu, it counts more than 12 million users and 100 million generated models, and reports about $60m in annual recurring revenue.

China-based generative AI company HiDream.ai has raised $221.6m (RMB 1.5B) in a Series C round co-led by ICBC Capital, Shanghai Dunhong Asset Management, the Sichuan Zhenxing Sci-Tech Innovation Fund, and Zhejiang Hongyi Asset Management, with ten further investors including Huace Film and Television (SZSE: 300133). The round takes HiDream past unicorn status and its total raised since Apr’26 to more than $310m (RMB 2.1B), after the $73.3m growth round and the $14.7m round. Founded in 2023 by CEO Tao Mei, the Beijing company builds the HiDream series of visual foundation models, which it says is the only base model to cover text, image, video, and 3D together. It sells into marketing and film rather than games directly, so its games exposure runs through that 3D leg and through new backer Shanghai Film New Horizons Fund, whose mandate names AI plus games. Q1’26 contracted revenue exceeded $59m (RMB 400m), more than it booked in all of 2025.

US-based video game commerce platform Neon has raised $13m in a Series A round, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Renegade Partners, and strategic participation from South Korea-based games publisher KRAFTON (KRX: 259960). The round brings total capital raised to $27m since 2022. KRAFTON also disclosed a commercial partnership signed in summer 2025, under which it will run on Neon’s payments and commerce infrastructure while developing its own proprietary payment system. Founded in 2022 by CEO Chris Faught, the 20-person San Francisco company builds white-label web stores, embedded checkout, and merchant-of-record services for mobile and PC publishers across 45 markets. Proceeds will fund hiring, loyalty products, and further payment-processor integrations.

US-based scholastic esports platform PlayVS has raised $4.0m from four undisclosed investors, according to an SEC filing. The offering is fully sold, with the first sale recorded on May 1, 2026. PlayVS runs competitive leagues in titles including the vehicular soccer game Rocket League and the MOBA League of Legends for US high schools and middle schools, in partnership with state athletic associations. The company entered a restructuring in May’26 involving cost reductions and leadership changes, and is reintroducing an annual school site licence from Fall 2026 after two seasons of free access. PlayVS acquired youth esports platform Vanta Esports in Jan’26.

Saudi Arabia-based PC & Console games developer Ash Games Studio has raised $1.5m in a Seed round co-led by Merak Capital, through its Merak Gaming Fund, and IMPACT46. Merak invests through its $80m (SAR 300m) fund and IMPACT46 through a $40m (SAR 150m) one, the two vehicles of Saudi Arabia’s $120m (SAR 450m) gaming and esports financing programme, set up by the National Development Fund and the Social Development Bank in Mar’24. Founded in 2022, the 18-person Riyadh studio released the stealth adventure game Azooma Escape in Aug’25 and is developing the action roguelite Nomad: The Legend of Zarqa, built on Arabian folklore and targeting PC & Consoles in 2027.

South Korea-based PC & Console games developer Hypercent has raised an undisclosed sum in a Seed round from the Korea Industrial Intelligence Association DX Innovation Investment Fund No. 5, in a deal originated by the accelerator Speroa. Founded in 2023 by CEO Kim Ju-wan, the studio released the eight-player co-op horror survival game Backroom Company in 2024, which has generated ~$2.5m in gross revenue from over 350,000 copies sold on Steam, according to Alinea Analytics. Proceeds will fund its four-player co-op roguelike shooter Backroom Cleaners, which the studio says has passed 10,000 Steam wishlists ahead of an Early Access launch scheduled for Dec’26.

EARNINGS REPORTS

Share price reaction is the close-to-close move straddling the report date, from the last close before the announcement to the first close after it. 

PUBLIC MARKET PERFORMANCE

Share-price changes over the trading week from Friday Jul 17 to Friday Jul 24, for the public games companies InvestGame tracks: publishers, developers, and toys and tabletop names with a market cap above $50m.

Source: InvestGame, local-currency price change.

SHARE PRICE SIGNALS

• Stillfront (+31.8%) rose after its Jul 24 Q2 report put adjusted EBITDAC up 3% YoY at $40m (SEK 387m) on a 29% margin. Net revenue declined 1.3% organically, as 10% organic growth across its key franchises was offset by a 24% decline in the rest of the portfolio.
  
• Enad Global 7 (+12.9%) rose on the Jul 23 announcement that the co-op shooter Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2, developed by Cold Iron Studios and published by Daybreak, launches globally on Aug 25.
• Hasbro (+8.9%) rose after its Jul 21 Q2 report put revenue at $1,140m, up 16% YoY, and adj. EBITDA at $330m, up 9%. Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming grew 27% to $664m at a 40.7% operating margin, with the trading card game Magic: The Gathering up 32%. Full-year guidance was raised to 5%-7% constant-currency growth, against a $56m non-cash impairment on cancelled digital gaming projects.
• Modern Times Group (+5.5%) rose after its Jul 21 Q2 report put net sales at $305m (SEK 2,965m), up 6% pro forma, and adj. EBITDA at $73m (SEK 707m) on a 24% margin. The Casual District grew 29% organically against 1% at the larger Midcore District, direct-to-consumer reached 38% of group revenue, and the full-year outlook was reiterated at 5% to 8% pro forma growth.
• Ten Square Games (+5.1%) rose across the last two sessions of the week after Noble Securities resumed coverage before the Jul 23 open with a Buy and a PLN 152.7 target against a PLN 89.4 share price, citing Q2 bookings up 14% YoY and a slowing revenue decline at the fishing simulator Fishing Clash. The same note calls the current quarter transitional and expects the studio’s next global launch to slip into 2027.
• Playstudios (-24.1%) fell in every session of the week. At the Jul 10 annual meeting shareholders approved a reverse split of between 1-for-10 and 1-for-30, giving the board a year to restore the Nasdaq minimum bid price after the shares moved to the Nasdaq Capital Market for a compliance extension. The stock ended the week at $0.63 on a market cap of about $80m, with Q2 results due Aug 3.
• Ubisoft (-12.3%) fell 14.2% in the Jul 23 session, against a 1.5% decline across the wider French market, then published Q1’FY27 net bookings of $291m (EUR 255.8m) after the Paris close, down 9.2% and slightly ahead of its own $284m (EUR 250m) target. On the call, the CFO said some major productions had moved to fiscal 2028 and 2029, and the full-year outlook was left unchanged. The shares recovered 2.3% the following session.
• NetEase (-8.9%) and Perfect World (-8.9%) fell together in a broad Jul 22 selloff across Chinese tech that closed Hong Kong’s tech index down 3.0%, with NetEase off 7.4% and Tencent 7.1%. The move reached well beyond games, taking Bilibili, Kuaishou and NIO down more than 3% the same session, and gaming was among the weakest sectors in mainland China that day. The selling centred on expectations of a softer mobile gaming quarter by Tencent. 
• Playtika (-8.2%) fell after a Jul 20 Calcalist report that Tencent is reportedly in talks to acquire its SuperPlay studio for $1B to $1.5B. The shares recovered 12.9% the following session before giving the gain back across the rest of the week.

EARNINGS CALENDAR: THE WEEK AHEAD

Earnings scheduled for Jul 27 to Aug 2, 2026. Dates are as scheduled by the issuers and remain subject to change. Source: InvestGame.

This digest is published for information only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.