GAME, the UK’s leading video games retailer, has today announced the acquisition of Multiplay, the community-based games company focused on live events, online gaming services and eSports.

GAME’s partnership with Multiplay will create a unique platform to significantly expand and enhance its community-events and eSports programme, supporting GAME’s ongoing mission to build the most valuable community of gamers.

The partnership will build on the successful programme of community events and engagement activities already provided by GAME, offering unparalleled retail experiences for customers. Last year alone, over 4,000 gamers participated at one of GAME’s 280 lock-ins, whilst over 150,000 attended more than 3,000 midnight launches held across the country, allowing us to meet, engage and reward the gaming community.

In 2014, Multiplay’s leading consumer event, Insomnia, saw visitor numbers rise 60% with more than 67,000 people attending in person, 1.4 million logging on to the official Insomnia website and more than 45 million interactions across Twitch, YouTube and Flickr. Now in its third year at Insomnia, GAME will continue to have a retail presence at the expo and this year will see an even bigger and better showcase for the company. GAME will pay £12.6m upfront, then a further £7.4m in cash and shares over the next three years.

This could prove to be the end of the community side of the Insomnia LAN and turn the event in to a commercialised event targeted at footfall and not amount of participants in eSports tournaments or community gaming.

Martyn Gibbs, Chief Executive of GAME Digital, said: “Like Multiplay, we put our communities at the heart of our business. Together we will be able to move even faster to grow and develop our services for both gamers and suppliers in the UK, Spain and around the world.

“With our combined passion and expertise, we are looking forward to delivering more, bigger and better experiences for our communities and are excited for what the future holds.”