Sega Sammy has released its financial report for the nine-month period that officially concluded on December 31st, 2023, and that report that demonstrated a rise in overall sales and profit despite a decrease in sales for Sega’s new titles.

That decline was offset by growth in pachislot and pachinko machines, however Sega had lowered its sales forecasts for the full financial year.

Here is a breakdown, courtesy of GamesIndustry.biz.

• Net sales: ¥349.9 billion ($2.3 billion, up 28.7% year-on-year)
• Operating income: ¥54.4 billion ($364 million, up 42.4% year-on-year)
• Ordinary income: ¥57.2 billion ($383 million, up 42.7% year-on-year)
• Net sales were up 130.3% to ¥120.2 billion ($805 million) in this segment
• Ordinary income increased by 521.3% at ¥45.7 billion ($306 million).
• Entertainment Contents segment, which includes video games, net sales were up 4.2% at ¥219.3 billion
• Profit decreased by 52.5% to ¥19.7 billion ($131.8 million) as a result of weak game sales

You can read a breakdown of the entire report at GamesIndustry.biz here.

CVC Capital Partners and Haveli Investments have reached an agreement to acquire RuneScape developer Jagex from Carlyle Group, according to Sky News.

While financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed publicly, the Sky News report indicates that CVC was planning to spend £900 million on the purchase of Jagex.

Luxembourg-based CVC Capital Partners is one of the world’s largest private equity firms and Austin-based Haveli Investments is an established games investor.

CVC Capital Partners has previously backed Dead by Daylight creator Behaviour Interactive, London-based Predecessor developer Omeda Studios, and Tel Aviv-based Match Masters studio Candivore.

Jagex has more than 700 staff worldwide, and is best known for its RuneScape franchise and is currently working on the PC and console launch of Scum by Gamepires sometimes in 2024.

Interactive drama developer and BAFTA-nominated studio Scriptic has raised a total $6.2 million in additional seed funding, including $500,000 from the Sony Innovation Fund, bringing the total seed investments to $8.7 million.

The funding will be deployed to continue going towards the expansion of its mobile narrative offerings, and the studio aims to provide its generative AI developer tools to more writers and storytellers.

“It’s a huge honor to have Sony Innovation Fund join our roster of stellar investors, and we’re thrilled that they share our vision for the future of interactive media and storytelling,” Scriptic CEO Nihal Tharoor said, according to GamesIndustry.biz.

This marks another example of  studios who find Angel Investors and find VC investors to fund their initiatives, and those deals making waves in the gaming industry.