Top Private Gaming Companies 🕹️

Video games can reduce stress, anxiety, and even overeating. No wonder their popularity skyrocketed during the pandemic. The Nintendo Switch was regularly back-ordered, with a staggering 28.8MN consoles sold in 2020 alone. With Nintendo’s share price climbing 90% since March 2020, game developers going public at enormous valuations, and gigantic fundings going to private gaming companies, we’re looking at the top players in the gaming industry.

Benefits of Gaming

I’m a self-described video game skeptic after growing up watching my older brother play the morally-deranged Grand Theft Auto game and later questioning the violence in first-person shooter games eerily similar to military behavior in Iraq. However, while those games continue to feature in Top 10 lists of popular games, so too are the Angry Birds and Candy Crushes. There’s even Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild where, from my vantage point over my boyfriend’s shoulder, is about collecting vegetables to cook over an open flame. Now that’s my kinda game.

The most obvious benefits of gaming, particularly during the pandemic, were the ability to fill idle time that would otherwise be spent doomscrolling the Internet or overindulging in some other vice. Some unexpected benefits include the increased manual dexterity that might make a gamer an excellent surgeon. Gaming can even help people with dyslexia improve reading skills by training their focus. Games can even make you a better leader or less likely to bully. 
 

Big Deals

Roblox, the most popular children’s game, went public at a valuation of over $41BN in March. Playtika raised nearly $2BN in its IPO. Skillz is turning online gaming into e-sports and went public via SPAC in late 2020. The rumor mill is hopeful that Epic Games will follow suit.

Here are some of the top games and their developers:

Top 3 Games (public companies): 

1. 🔫 Call of Duty is a first-person shooter game made by Activision    
2. 🏀 NBA 2K22 is basketball without the dribbling made by Take-Two Game
3. 🏈 Madden NFL 20 is football without the head injuries made by EA 

Top 4 Games (private companies):

1. 🗡️ Borderlands 3 is a blood and gore shooter game with highly stylized art. It is made by Gearbox Software, makers of Duke Nuken & Brothers in Arms. 

2. 💥 Fortnite is Epic Games' runaway hit, a “fantastic blend of shooting and building that’s unlike anything in competitive gaming” according to their IGN review. Epic has been in the headlines lately for its battle against Apple’s app store.

3. 🚙 Grand Theft Auto V is the most realistic version of supposedly satirical anything goes, conman classic put out by Rockstar Games. Apparently, Elijah Woods thinks a screen adaptation would be amazing.

4. 💣 League of Legends made by Riot Games was one of the first big free-to-play games that have earned them a lively gaming community of about 115MM active monthly players.

Game on!