Gaming M&A Masterclass with Greg Richardson

I recently sat down with Greg Richardson, Managing Partner at Juno Capital Partners, to receive a masterclass on gaming M&A in 2026. Niantic, Gearbox, DICE, Turtle Rock, Bioware/Pandemic and more - Greg has played a pivotal role in some of the biggest and most important transactions in games industry history over his storied career. And that is on top of a foundation of being a highly experienced operator, executive and founder in the industry.

One of the most insightful moments of interview came when Greg gave me a picture of what the outlook for M&A is over the next 12 months or so:

Ethan “When you privately talk to founders, CEOs, corp dev teams, VCs, publishers, what do you think the conventional wisdom is for M&A in gaming going forward? And what do you think that conventional wisdom gets wrong?”

Greg “That’s a big question. We obviously lived through a few years where M&A and consolidation were what the game industry was doing more often than it was producing great new games.

“The last couple of years have seen that take a pretty big step back. There was the post-COVID hangover of trying to understand how engaged will the audience be in a post-COVID world? How does that all manifest itself in a sustainable business going forward?

“And it led people to take a step backwards. You saw a lot of the larger public companies do “fewer, bigger, better” as they looked at their own IP portfolio, and they became less acquisitive. You saw some of the companies who had consolidated a lot struggling to figure out what to do with all the assets that they had bought. And it led to a demurring of the activity that was going on.

“Throughout 2025 you saw the appetite for acquisition pick back up, and I think you’re going to continue to see that in 2026. It will be different though, and I think the differences are what provides insight to folks who are thinking about how M&A may impact the in the next twelve months.

“A lot of the traditional larger acquirers are no longer in the business of acting as holding companies because they themselves have been bought. Activision and EA just in recent history are now owned elsewhere. But you have an emerging group of new capital sources. Folks that want to take a look at the middle market which has kind of been left behind, whether that’s the indie PC space or the AA console space that are becoming more active.

“The mobile market continues to be huge, and it’s a very difficult one for the larger companies to introduce organic new successful IP. So they are constantly looking out at the horizon of smaller businesses who are introducing new games, perhaps in a genre where they don’t have a leadership position they want to add to their portfolio.

“There’s also a tremendous amount of curiosity around Roblox and UGC and whether there are opportunities that exist there.

“And then in the traditional capital markets, I think the venture and early-stage guys are still sifting through the investments they made from 2021 to 2024. They’re not as active. There’s less capital being deployed from some of those folks. But you’re seeing larger growth equity and private equity firms wanting to buy EBITDA positive businesses that they believe could be growth platforms for them to invest into what’s still a huge and robust market.”

This was an amazing interview from a true expert and leader in the field of gaming M&A. For more insights on what to expect from gaming M&A in 2026, do yourself a favor and listen to the full discussion above.