The Most Expensive Gaming Company Acquisitions of All Time – Visual Capitalist

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Not even a week after Take-Two Interactive acquired mobile game developer Zynga for $12.7 billion, Microsoft claimed the title for the most expensive gaming acquisition in history.
The tech giant will acquire the famed gaming company Activision Blizzard, for $69 billion. This makes them one of the biggest video game development market players (a fact that has not escaped the notice of the FTC).
Such multi-billion gaming company acquisitions are quickly becoming a norm. Some of the largest takeovers have occurred in the past three to five years.
Until January 2022, Tencent’s $8.6 billion purchase of gaming publisher Supercell was the biggest video game industry acquisition.
2022 completely changed that with two of the biggest acquisitions happening within the first couple of weeks.
Here are the top 15 most expensive gaming company acquisitions in history:

10 of the 15 biggest gaming company acquisitions have happened in the last three years.
Microsoft’s announcement to acquire Activision Blizzard is the clearest sign yet of the company’s ambitions to become a giant in the world of gaming.
This merger would make Microsoft the third-largest video game company globally in terms of revenue and the publisher behind games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard wasn’t the only major takeover that Microsoft has ever made. Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media in 2020 for $7.5 billion, and Minecraft creator Mojang Studios for $2.5 billion in 2014.
Here are all the gaming companies and studios that Microsoft currently owns:

Part of the reason Microsoft has made such massive acquisitions is to play catch up and better compete in the gaming market. The sales of their Xbox console have also fared relatively poorly compared to PlayStation devices.
Sony’s announcement to buy Destiny creator Bungie might be their attempt to neutralize Microsoft’s recent acquisitions, and it remains to be seen how that will play out.
As mobile gaming revenues explode, companies are trying to cash in their relevance in the online social space. Even in the middle of a pandemic, around 1,500 mergers and acquisitions worth $43 billion took place in 2020.
With newer changes in the user experience domain cropping up, gaming as a social space is now inextricably linked to the current metaverse trend. As online games and streaming become mainstream, we might experience gaming in a completely new and immersive way.
As big tech companies continue to move into gaming to diversify their revenue streams, we may see more acquisitions and consolidation on the horizon.
Where does this data come from?
Source: GameSpot, Statista, Kotaku
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Hosting the Olympics is an honor that comes with great financial responsibility. Here’s how much host cities have spent in recent times.
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The scope of the Olympics has scaled up drastically.
Over a century ago, the first modern games had approximately 280 athletes competing from 12 different countries—these days, more than 10,000 athletes from 200+ countries participate in this prestigious athletic event.
As the games have increased in scope and size, so too has the cost of putting them on.
How much does it cost to host the Olympic games? Over the years, the final price tag has varied greatly from city to city. Here’s a look at the estimated cost of hosting the games (both summer and winter) since 1998.
A major expense for a host city is building out infrastructure to support the tourism and traffic generated by the games.
For instance, when Sochi hosted the Winter Olympics in 2014, the city spent roughly $50.7 billion on non-sports-related infrastructure—approximately 85% of its total budget.

Of course, the hope is that non-sports-related infrastructure will benefit the host city long-term, which is how countries rationalize the cost.
But sports-related facilities also cost a fortune to build, and are often not utilized once the games are over. For instance, Beijing’s national stadium cost $460 million to build initially, with millions needed to maintain it each year. The facility has barely been used in the years following the 2008 games.
That said, it is worth noting that Beijing plans on using the national stadium for the Opening and Closing ceremonies when they host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Where does this data come from?
Source: Robert Baade and Victor Matheson, “Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics”; Andrew Zimbalist, Circus Maximus; Marketplace; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via Council on Foreign Relations
Details: Estimated costs have been adjusted to account for inflation. Estimates include infrastructure costs, as well as other indirect spending and sports-related expenses.
According to the World Economic Forum, the erosion of social cohesion is one of the risks that has worsened the most since COVID-19.
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Each year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) puts together its Global Risks Report, an analysis of the top risks that pose a threat to the world.
The report includes data from nearly 1,000 surveyed leaders, across various organizations and regions. In this year’s report, respondents were asked which global risks have gotten worse since the start of the pandemic.
Here’s what they said.
According to respondents, the erosion of social cohesion is the global risk that has intensified the most since the start of the global pandemic. The WEF defines this as the loss of social capital or social stability.
Inequality existed long before COVID-19, but the pandemic has only made things worse.
For example, employment recovery has been uneven across the United States. High-wage workers have seen employment rates bounce back fairly quickly after their Spring 2020 slump, while low-wage workers haven’t recovered at the same rate.
As of August 2021, employment rates for those making below $27K a year were still down 25% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
In addition to societal threats, a couple environmental risks made it to the top of the list as well. Both Climate action failure and extreme weather were in the top five.
Considering how difficult it’s been for international governments to collaborate on COVID-19 relief efforts, respondents feel less than optimistic that we’ll manage to seamlessly deal with the chaos that could come from environmental risks, which are similarly complex.
Which global risk do you think has worsened the most since the start of the pandemic?
Where does this data come from?
Source: WEF Global Risks Report 2022
Details: Data in this report is from the The Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), the World Economic Forum’s source of original risks data. Survey responses were collected from 8 September to 12 October 2021. See the report for full details on methodology.
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