Games & interactive
A live-service title is a business. A hit is a moment. Buyers pay for the first.
Studios are bought for a team, a pipeline or a title, and which of the three is being bought changes the structure entirely. Title-level economics get diligenced alongside the studio, and the roadmap gets diligenced alongside both.
Who acquires in this sector.
The buyer set determines the process. These are the parties we approach on a mandate here, and the reason each of them pays.
What moves the number, and what moves it back.
Both lists are what buyers in this sector actually examine. The first is where preparation earns its return. The second is where processes lose ground once diligence opens.
What lifts the multiple
Worth fixing twelve to twenty-four months before you go to market.
- Live-service revenue and content cadenceRecurring player spend supported by a sustainable release rhythm.
- Team retention and a credible pipelineThe people who shipped the last title, and a roadmap they can actually deliver.
- IP ownership and platform termsWhat the studio owns outright, and on what commercial terms it reaches players.
- User acquisition efficiencyWhere spend is part of the model, whether it pays back inside a defensible window.
- Back catalogueTitles still earning without active development are quietly valuable.
What gets discounted
Found in diligence if it is not addressed first, and repriced when it is found.
- Single-title dependencyOne title carrying the studio makes the whole valuation a bet on that title's curve.
- Revenue past its peakBuyers model the decline curve, not the trailing twelve months.
- Engine and middleware licensingRoyalty and licence terms that travel with the product and compress margin.
- Work-for-hire mixed with owned IPTwo different businesses with two different multiples, presented as one.
- Key creative person riskWhere a named individual is the creative direction, retention becomes the deal.
How a process runs here.
Separate work-for-hire from owned IP in the reporting before you go to market, because buyers will value them differently and will do the separation themselves if you have not. Where a live title carries the business, the release roadmap becomes a diligence document rather than an internal plan.