First Take: The year of the video game deal

Now that Microsoft has confirmed the acquisition of Minecraft — arguably the video game industry's biggest name — we can officially dub 2014 the year of the video game deal.

It started in February, when Facebook scooped up virtual reality giant Oculus for $2 billion. Then, in late August, Amazon announced its plans to acquire streaming video company Twitch for nearly $1 billion.

Now, Microsoft plunks down $2.5 billion for Minecraft, the Lego-like "sandbox" game where players spend countless hours crafting any world their imaginations can conjure.

The reason behind all three of these big deals in the video game industry comes down to one word: engagement.

"It is about building ecosystems with rich consumer services that are easier to monetize across multiple channels and in portfolio form than individually," says IDC analyst Al Hilwa.

Once equipped with an Oculus Rift, users can get lost in video games or any other virtual activity. Twitch — which specializes in live streams of players' video game exploits — says it welcomed 55 million unique visitors watching 15 billion minutes of content in July.

Then there's Minecraft, which netted nearly 2 billion hours of play time on the Xbox 360 in the past two years. That's not counting PlayStation, iOS, Android and where the phenomenon all started: the PC.

"Games are very highly engaging apps on any platform," says Gartner analyst Brian Blau. "Games bring a lot of entertainment value. They're typically sort of value-priced, meaning that people feel they get a lot of personal satisfaction out of playing games, even if they're mobile games or more-expensive console games."

However, the big concern with any acquisition like this is what changes — if anything — to the service or product being bought. Forrester analyst James McQuivey says Minecraft culture is "largely open and unregulated" and suggests Microsoft follow Amazon in allowing properties like Minecraft and Twitch to operate as usual.

"Minecraft is what it is because its users are free to make it whatever they want it to be," he says.

Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.