Take-Two, the parent company behind IPs such as Grand Theft Auto, BioShock, and Borderlands, acquired the mobile gaming giant Zynga. And they acquired them in a particularly spectacular way might I add. The deal struck between the two companies is worth a record-breaking 12.7 billion dollars.
This deal broke the record by a whopping 4 billion dollars. The previous historic transaction of such magnitude was in 2016 when Tencent bought out Supercell, the developers of Clash of Clans and Brawl Stars.
Other notable transactions in the “top 10” of priciest acquisitions in the videogame industry are as follows. The 8.1 billion dollar acquisition of ZeniMax Media, parent of Bethesda, ID Software, and Arkane Studios, by Microsoft in March of 2021. Or the historic acquisition of Mojang by Microsoft in 2014 for 2.5 billion dollars.
“We are thrilled to announce our transformative transaction with Zynga, which significantly diversifies our business and establishes our leadership position in mobile, the fastest-growing segment of the interactive entertainment industry,” said Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two.
Zelnick went on to explain that Zynga will now help Take-Two IPs enter the mobile market. What’s very interesting is that this is now 4th mobile game developer acquired by Take-Two. This ongoing process of acquiring various mobile-oriented studios started back in 2016.
It will be interesting to see what kind of titles will enter the mobile space thanks to this partnership. Take-Two did not have a break trough success on the mobile platform yet. 2K, a subsidiary of Take-Two, develops their biggest mobile titles. The ones that had the most success so far were based on NBA and WWE licenses.
Also of note is the iFruit app integration in Grand Theft Auto V. A complementary app for the game which sadly did not offer much so it never caught on. But who knows what awaits us now that Take-Two Acquired Zynga. They could have Rockstar add new app integration to GTA Online possibly.
One thing is for sure. We may see some kind of big Take-Two IP on mobile this year. If not, next year for sure.
