Take-Two Interactive owns Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption game series developers Rockstar Games, Mafia developer 2K Games, and a few more studios. The New York-based company has reportedly acquired Zynga in a record deal in the history of video games. Take-Two had previously announced its plans to acquire the developers of FarmVille at a record price of $12.7 billion. The acquisition process is now complete.
Microsoft recently announced its plans to acquire Activision and all the studios under it in a record $68.7 billion deal. This acquisition is still underway and will take until the second quarter of 2023 to complete. Take-Two’s $12.7 billion deal is the second-largest buyout in the history of video games, and, currently, the largest complete acquisition. Zynga’s stockholders are getting $3.50 in cash per share and 0.0406 shares of Take-Two stock for every Zynga stock they have.
Tapping into the huge potential of mobile and smartphone gaming, this acquisition will help the publishers to come up with unparalleled experiences for users. The acquisition also gives the former company access to FarmVille and other video games Zynga came up with in the past. Mobile gaming keeps getting more popular as it starts to draw in more players than PC and the consoles combined. Thus, both companies are focused on building a strong video game portfolio post-acquisition.
After this purchase, the current largest buyouts in video gaming history stand as follows:
- Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard buyout: $75 billion (still in proposal state, to be complete by Q2 2023)
- Take-Two’s Zynga buyout: $12.7 billion (completed in 2022)
- Tencent’s Supercell buyout: $10.2 billion (completed in 2016)
- Microsoft’s Bethesda buyout: $8.1 billion (completed in 2021)
Take-Two’s Zynga buyout was based on a 45-day “go-shop” model. This means Zynga was allowed to go and search for a better deal with a buyer who was willing to pay more money per Zynga share. But, we do not have any information on whether the company readily sought other buyers during this period. When Take-Two announced its plans to acquire Zynga in the record deal, it inadvertently became the largest acquisition in gaming history. However, only days later, Microsoft announced its plans to buy out Activision and most of the development studios under it.
This proposed deal is significantly more valuable as compared to the money Take-Two is paying for the FarmVille developers. Studios under Take-Two previously worked with other mobile game development studios in the past. Some notable launches to date are the 10 Anniversary Editions of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas, Dragon City, WWE SuperCard, and Top Eleven. With this addition now complete, this lineup is supposed to get better and bigger in the upcoming few years.