Alibaba Sells Its Game Studio. Mattel Builds One.

Alibaba is selling its game studio. Mattel is building one instead. The exact opposite.

Alibaba is selling its entire stake in Lingxi Games to Trustar Capital. The studio is known for Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition. Bloomberg estimates the deal at a minimum of $1.5 billion, while a Reuters source says Alibaba will receive more than $2 billion. The current management team will remain in place.

At the same time, Alibaba is raising another $10.2 billion by issuing 710 million new shares. The company says the entire amount will be invested in AI capabilities and infrastructure. Demand reached approximately $28 billion, yet Alibaba’s shares fell almost 9%.

Mattel took a different route on August 14 by launching Mattel Game Studios. Nearly 300 employees in Los Angeles and Hangzhou will develop, publish and operate games. The studio will also focus on Roblox and Fortnite.

Roblox averaged 123 million daily users and 29 billion hours of engagement in the second quarter of 2026. Since the launch of UEFN, Fortnite players have spent more than 11.2 billion hours in creator-made experiences. Epic has paid those creators $722 million.

UEFN stands for Unreal Editor for Fortnite. It is Epic Games’ development environment that allows creators to build and publish their own games, worlds and interactive experiences inside Fortnite. They can use elements of Unreal Engine to reach players and make money from their creations.

Meanwhile, Roblox is using AI to accelerate game development. Creators now generate more than 60,000 3D assets every day using the platform’s AI tools.

Which approach do you think offers the stronger position: Alibaba’s or Mattel’s?

#AI #Gaming #Roblox #Alibaba #Mattel