Supercell Closes Metacore Deal as Mobile Buys Catalogs
Supercell's Metacore deal closes by the end of September, adding a 65-million-download live game; Kakao Games is paying $71.5 million for 39.56% of Me2on; and Chinese listed studios grew first-half profit 40.58%. Mobile capital is buying catalogs, not new IP.
一、The deal: signed August 31, closing this month
Timeline and disclosure
Supercell published "Merge Mansion is Joining Supercell" on August 31. Metacore confirmed a definitive agreement on September 1, with closing expected by the end of the month and transaction terms undisclosed
What both sides said
Supercell president Sara Bach framed Merge Mansion as a genre creator with "all the ingredients of a game that can be played for years and remembered forever." Metacore CEO Mika Tammenkoski stressed that player experience stays the priority and that his team is excited about the resources joining Supercell brings.
二、What Supercell is actually buying
65 million downloads and roughly $540 million lifetime revenue
AppMagic estimates put Merge Mansion's lifetime revenue near $540 million since its 2020 launch, with about $7.7 million earned in the last 30 days. The studio's own framing cites more than 65 million downloads and over $800 million lifetime revenue. Note the gap: the widely quoted "roughly $700 million" figure refers to lifetime revenue, not the acquisition price.
A peak of $30 million a month, now under an eighth of that
Trade retrospectives put Merge Mansion's peak monthly revenue around $30 million, at a time when it effectively created the "merge 2" category. Competition then crowded in, and monthly revenue settled below $10 million. Supercell is buying a mature product with a plateaued top line and a still-reliable cash flow.
三、The 2026 M&A wave: Me2on and SteamDB
Kakao Games pays $71.5 million for 39.56% of Me2on
Kakao Games approved the purchase at board level on September 15, valuing Me2on at roughly $181 million, with completion scheduled for November 16. It is the first major deal under the company's new management structure.
Nexus Mods takes over SteamDB
In the same stretch, Nexus Mods acquired SteamDB, a tracking site that had run independently for 13 years. Buying live-service revenue, buying data infrastructure, buying mature IP — the moves share one assumption: new growth is getting harder to build from scratch.
四、The other end of the best gaming news this month: China's profit harvest
23 listed studios, profit up 40.58%
Across 23 A-share game companies, first-half 2026 revenue reached ¥59.109 billion, up 18.29% year on year, while net profit attributable to shareholders hit ¥12.002 billion, up 40.58% — profit growing more than twice as fast as revenue .
950 licences and $2.039 billion overseas
China's regulator issued 950 game licences in the first half of 2026, including 215 in August alone (209 domestic, 6 imported), the highest monthly total in years. Chinese developers earned $2.039 billion overseas in May, up 29.27% year on year
五、The risk: how long can you keep buying the catalog?
Metacore is the cautionary tale. Supercell had committed roughly €180 million in equity and credit since 2018 and still got no new global hit, while Metacore's organisation had been built for growth that never arrived. If every major publisher pivots to acquiring finished products, the pipeline that produces new IP gets drained — and the industry pays for today's saved R&D in three to five years. This deal is not a guaranteed win for Supercell either: it inherits a title whose downloads have peaked and whose monthly revenue sits below an eighth of its high-water mark.
六、My take: this is renting, not bottom-fishing
The mobile market's growth model has changed. Player numbers keep rising while new-game downloads fall, so capital has moved from betting to collecting rent: buy stable cash flow, then squeeze more margin out of it with publishing and live-ops muscle. Chinese listed studios are responding more directly still — normalised licence approvals plus hits entering their harvest phase pushed profit growth past twice revenue growth. One end of the industry is collecting rent, the other is paying dividends, and the layer in the middle that used to bet on new IP is thinning out. That is the signal worth worrying about.
七、FAQ
How much is Supercell paying for Metacore?
Terms were not disclosed. The "roughly $700 million" figure circulating online is Merge Mansion's lifetime revenue, not the price; deal trackers published estimates that neither company confirmed.
How much does Merge Mansion earn now?
AppMagic estimates about $7.7 million in the last 30 days and roughly 400,000 monthly downloads, against more than 65 million lifetime downloads reported by the studio.
Why is mobile M&A clustering in 2026?
Mobile has shifted from user acquisition to monetisation: new-game acquisition costs are high, mature live games produce steady cash, and buying one is faster than rebuilding a hit.
八、Your call
Should publishers buy long-term live games, or keep betting on brand-new IP? Come discuss in the Gghubs comments.