#150 What the heck is going on? Discussing the gaming megatrends with Hemal Thaker (Goldman Sachs) and Kartik Prabhakara (Aream)

Consolidation, IDFA, metverse, Web3 and now a recession…

During just the last couple of years, we’ve seen some wild phenomena affect the games industry: First, lockdowns caused engagement spikes. Second, we saw a streak of consolidations with record-breaking deals. Third, the impact of the privacy changes started taking effect, all the while as the crypto boom turned into crypto winter...

Today, the industry is influenced by some very interesting trends and headwinds: We are facing a global recession. There’s fierce competition for talent. And the costs of customer acquisition are going up. At the same time, we see the formation of walled gardens that threaten smaller companies that don't have unique content.

To dive deep into the issues above, we were joined by Hemal Thaker, the Global Head of Gaming & Interactive Entertainment at Goldman Sachs, and Kartik Prabhakara, the Founding Partner of Aream, an independent investment bank providing M&A and financing advice to technology companies.