Gaming titan Take-Two Interactive has purchased mobile studio Zynga. Strauss Zelnick's studio announced its purchase of all of Zynga's outstanding shares earlier today, with the total "enterprise value" of the acquisition coming to around $12.7 billion.
Why has Take-Two purchased Zynga?
Take-Two announced the purchase of Zynga via press release earlier today. In that press release, Strauss Zelnick's company says the purchase is intended to establish Take-Two as one of the "largest and most diversified mobile game publishers" in the gaming industry. CEO Strauss Zelnick described the acquisition as a coming together of "complementary businesses" which will allow both Take-Two and Zynga to operate on a larger scale. For his part, Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau says he's excited to be part of the Take-Two umbrella and that he's looking forward to Zynga creating "even better games" as part of Take-Two.
The press release clarifies that Zynga will remain as its own label within Take-Two, operating alongside the existing T2 Mobile Games label. In addition, two of Zynga's board of directors will be added to the Take-Two board, expanding its total size to 10 members. What's interesting is that the transaction also contains a "go-shop" provision, which technically entitles Zynga to seek alternative proposals for the next 45 days. This opens the door for a potential upset along the lines of the one experienced by Take-Two after losing Codemasters to EA in late 2020. Whether or not this happens remains to be seen, of course.
Take-Two and Zynga: giants in their fields
Take-Two's acquisition of Zynga represents one gaming giant acquiring another. Take-Two's franchises include Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and BioShock, to name but a few. It's also got the legal clout to hit indie games like It Takes Two with name-related copyright claims. Zynga, meanwhile, is a mobile titan, with studios like Golf Rival developer StarLark under its belt. Take-Two already operates within the mobile space, too, having published a number of mobile titles including WWE SuperCard and NBA 2K Mobile.
In an investor call to follow up on the acquisition announcement, Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau expanded a little on Zynga and Take-Two's approach to NFTs and the so-called "metaverse". Gibeau said that while Zynga is still "experimenting and learning" regarding this new tech, the company has "faith and belief" that the NFT market will be a worthwhile investment. This makes sense given that it's already an area in which major gaming companies like Konami and Square Enix are looking into, although a controversial public reception has led companies like Sega to doubt whether NFTs are worth investing in.
We'll have to wait and see what Take-Two's acquisition of Zynga will yield. In the aforementioned investor call, Zelnick said the acquisition would have no effect on the existing Take-Two or Zynga mobile development pipeline except for potentially yielding new projects. Zelnick didn't go into any further detail regarding what those projects might be, though, so we'll have to wait a little while to learn about them. Stay tuned for more info about this.
What do you want to see Take-Two and Zynga collaborate on? Let us know in the comments below!
