The gaming bonanza

Hi all, this is Zheping in Hong Kong. Gaming deals are all the rage, and not just in the U.S. But first…Today’s top tech news: The tech-heav [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi all, this is Zheping in Hong Kong. Gaming deals are all the rage, and not just in the U.S. But first… Today’s top tech news: - The tech-heavy Nasdaq is [taking a beating]( - Peloton lost about a [quarter of its market value]( on Thursday - Netflix shares slid about 20% after-hours on [fears of slowing growth]( Fun and gaming Gaming deals are having a moment. The chief example, of course, is Microsoft Corp.’s [massive acquisition]( of Activision Blizzard Inc. — unveiled just days after the $11 billion purchase [of Zynga]( emerged. But investors are also betting on other, lesser known companies in the race to stake a claim on our possible Web3 future. This week, Hong Kong game publisher Animoca Brands [raised $359 million]( from the likes of George Soros and the Winklevoss twins. The funding round valued the seven-year-old firm at $5 billion, more than double its valuation three months ago. (That’s not to mention it only just hit unicorn status in July.) Animoca offers a slew of blockchain-based games in genres like car racing and tower defense. But what’s making the startup truly valuable is its investment portfolio of more than 150 projects and companies involved with non-fungible tokens—holdings it said were [worth around $16 billion]( as of November. The startup’s co-founder, Yat Siu, sprung into action early to scoop up slices of NFT outfits. He now sports an albino bored ape wearing a safari hat as his social media profile photo. Many of the ventures he backed have been reinforced with funding from world-renowned investors like Andreessen Horowitz and SoftBank Group Corp. Animoca controls a Roblox-like platform called the Sandbox and has stakes in the studios behind hits like Axie Infinity and NBA Top Shot as well as the OpenSea marketplace. The Hong Kong startup has asserted its influence across a wide swath of the gaming and crypto space by acting as a venture capital firm itself. The last company to make game industry bets quite so cannily was Tencent Holdings Ltd., which bought stakes in the likes of Riot Games Inc. and Supercell on the way to becoming the world’s largest games publisher by revenue. Siu, who did stints at Atari and AT&T Inc. before becoming an entrepreneur in the late 1990s, isn’t shy about his ambition. In a [recent interview]( with local media, he claimed that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms Inc. is trying to build a “fake metaverse” because everyday users don’t have ownership of their data or virtual assets. “I describe Facebook kind of like a Disneyland, which is fun to be in,” he said. “But at the end of the day all of us are just tourists to Facebook.” He may be right, but blockchain games like Animoca’s have their own problems. One big one: They aren’t that fun to play—at least not yet. Take the Sandbox. Right now players don’t have much to do in that virtual realm aside from slashing zombies or dancing with a [pixelated version of Snoop Dogg](. As one YouTube commentator put it, in terms of gameplay and graphics, it appears to be a “below-average indie game,” not unlike most crypto games. And yet, big companies are spending millions to buy virtual land plots on the platform anyway. The most expensive in-game item you can get right now is a [$500,000 nut-shaped ornament](. Will real gamers stick with it after NFT speculators find their next target to pile money into? Investors seem ready to pay to find out. —[Zheping Huang](mailto:zhuang245@bloomberg.net) If you read one thing What Bitcoin downturn? Michael Saylor told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang he’s not worried about holding a [ton of the cryptocurrency](: “I don’t really think we could do anything better to position our company in an inflationary environment than to convert our balance sheet to Bitcoin.” The investor spoke about his crypto holdings, the downturn and more [in the segment](. Here’s what you need to know  Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink is inching toward [human trials](. Employees at scandal-plagued Activision say [they’re optimistic]( about the Microsoft deal. The chief executive officer of SoftBank’s Vision Fund thinks private markets [are overvalued](. Paris Hilton has an [NFT collaboration](. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? 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