Review of the 2014 China-US game takeover case

Guide: 2014 is a tough year for later, but who will be the most attractive target for next year's takeover?
"It's not a question of money. This is the question of freedom of thought. Marcus Persen (Markkus Persson), a person who is called Mallavi, Notch in his personal blog that the Mojang studio was sold to Microsoft and that he would leave, as a closing remark. Saying 2.5 billion dollars is enough to make a lot of people lose their minds. This may be a cliché, but it's not unfair at all. Because just last week, the guy spent a lot of money buying a mansion.

Microsoft's takeover of Mojang, to tell the truth, is actually a takeover of my world, which will be the headline of the year when it happens. "Minecraft" But in 2014, it will be the focus of trend followers, as the gaming industry is at the peak of mergers and acquisitions. Five to 1 billion dollars or more transactions, each single can be in the field as the King: Mojang, Oculus, Twitch, Giants and Fun games (Funplus), the transaction amount of 6.1 billion U.S. dollars.

Some might argue that the remainder of this year's mergers and acquisitions will have little value to pay attention to after discounting such heavyweight deals. But even without the five heavyweight deal, the value of mergers and acquisitions in the three quarter of 2014 years ago was worth more than 2013 years, and the 2013 deal was a record year. If these blockbuster deals were counted, the total value of the deal would be $12.5 billion trillion, twice times that of 2013.

Looking at the purchases in these high-value deals, we find that there are some rather traditional companies, some of which are not immediately effective. Tim Merel, general manager of Digi-capital, made some explanations.

"We can see from the big deal as of the third quarter of 2014 that independent gaming companies may also become rare (such as Mojang), and that some small companies (such as Oculus) may also be able to create large companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook) acquired legendary myths. ”

1, Microsoft acquisition Mojang (in accordance with 8 times times revenue 25 times times the income of the calculation, to obtain a 2.5 billion U.S. dollar acquisition price):

This is a long-term strategic investment, for Microsoft's future cloud platform, mobile platform, virtual reality platform and wearable products platform to train the "my World" user community.

2, Facebook acquisition Oculus (in the way of 87 times times revenue, to get a 2 billion dollar acquisition price):

This is a strategic investment in the future growth potential platform for virtual reality.

3, the Giant Network (Giant Interactive) privatization (in accordance with 8 times times revenue and 12 times times the operating income in a timely manner, to obtain a 1.6 billion dollar transaction price):

The Giants ' chairman and fund sponsors believe the Giants will be more valuable as private companies.

4, Amazon acquisition Twitch (allegedly according to the number of multiple digital revenue calculated twice times, to obtain a 970 million U.S. dollar acquisition price):

Amazon has not only accelerated its pace of video and gaming operations, but has also made a difference in terms of competitiveness.

5. The acquisition of game assets by ZJY (USD 960 million):

Chinese industrial companies have found a way to the future, while leaving the rest of the fun and games teams with enough money to invest in the mobile world.

In these acquisitions, the takeover of Oculus was a very obvious gamble. But the main focus of Facebook's use of the new technology does not seem to be on the game. It's worth noting that buying an idea that has not yet been validated in the business world at such a high price, and that the product of the technology in the consumer sector will take some time to develop, Oculus's deal seems odd.

And in 2014, some of the other mergers and acquisitions were also absorbing new business for themselves. It looks as if the momentum is unstoppable. Unity was the first to acquire mobile gaming service provider Applifier, cloud services company Tsugi and analytics company Playnomics before the rumours were heard. After being bought by Facebook, Oculus also bought virtual reality technology company Nimble VR and real time 3D technology company 13th Lab. and Autodesk also got bitsquid and shotgun Software.

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The distribution of wealth created by various businesses in the mobile internet market, with a value unit of 1 billion dollars

The mobile sector remains the biggest focus of corporate mergers and acquisitions, and this year's mergers and acquisitions in this area have reached $4.6 billion trillion, which will be pretty scary if the sums included in the IPO are taken into account.

"The biggest driver of the game industry is in the mobile arena, which will not change much in the short term," he said. "In the broader context of the mobile Internet as a whole (including corporate-transfer mergers and listing financing), the mobile game is the second-biggest push by mobile internet companies to sell up to $18 billion trillion in the first 12 months of the third quarter of 2014," says Mr Mello. It is second only to the field of communications (Facebook bought WhatsApp at $21.8 billion), which makes the performance of mobile games more interesting. ”

This partly reflects the way some companies are spending money to add to the growing mobile market, but there are also protectionist elements in which Zynga's takeover of natural motion last year was an example. According to Melors, this is just a big company that wants to "block the mobile sector of this group of rebels ' eating away their share". Other mergers and acquisitions are simply territorial-expansion deals that allow large companies to have a new foothold in difficult markets, such as the Chinese market.

In fact, 2014 was a year in which Western participants made a comeback in the mergers and acquisitions market, with 50% of them being U.S. companies and the rest by Japanese companies and Chinese companies. Only a year ago, 90% of mergers and acquisitions were initiated by companies from Asia.

"The companies that are being bought are all over the world. "So entrepreneurs and investors who want to sell their company at a good price need to do well with companies in the US and Asia." In recent years, European firms have been acquiring far more time to be acquirers than buyers. ”

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The ten major acquisitions of the game industry in 2014 American companies and Chinese companies

2014 is a tough year for the latter, but who will be the most attractive target for next year's takeover? First, if rumors are not unfounded, unity will be the next takeover target for big companies. The company has a steady growth and sensible strategy, and is highly popular among the next-generation platform's developer community. If it costs 1 billion to 2 billion dollars, it would be a very good deal. But Unity's chief technology officer, Chosim Ante Joachim Ante, vehemently denies the possibility of a company selling. Does it mean that the company is seeking to raise funds by listing, as John Ricitiello, the former chief executive of EA, joins the Unity Company's board of Directors (John Richitieno)?

In addition, Codemaster's owner, Reliance Group, recently made a lot of public opinion about expanding its mobile gaming business, Manish Agavar, chairman of the group, said to Reuters: " We did our best to plan and identify the studios in January and February. The game will be the biggest cake in the entertainment industry, and the Reliance Group wants to be an important player in the field. "The target of their acquisitions is likely to focus on the European and North American markets."

Facebook does not seem to have ended its Oculus-related acquisitions, but the next move is likely to be more about technical matters than the areas directly related to the game. It is hoped that Microsoft will at least put an independent gaming company under its wing next year, and Sony will remain indifferent to all of this.