Take-Two has officially finalized the $12.7 billion deal for social game developer Zynga, the two companies announced on Monday† With the acquisition, Take-Two will not only own major Zynga franchises such as: Farm village but also gain access to Zynga’s expertise in building hugely popular free-to-play mobile games.
Many notable game studios have invested heavily in mobile and some of the biggest titles have proven to generate huge revenues. For example, Activision’s Call of Duty: Mobilewhich launched in October 2019, recently surpassed $1.5 billion in lifetime revenue, according to Sensor Tower† And in November, Sensor Tower said Krafton’s PUBG mobile surpassed a dazzling $7 billion in lifetime earnings† (Tencent is significantly involved in the development of both titles, by the way.)
Take-Two, which owns large properties such as Grand Theft Auto† BioShockand Civilization, likely wants to get in on that mobile money, and it said in an investor presentation at the time of the deal that it plans to bring more of its franchises to mobile platforms with Zynga’s help.
The deal was first revealed in January in what ultimately kicked off a series of blockbuster gaming acquisition announcements. At the time, Take-Two’s purchase of Zynga was considered one of the largest acquisitions in video game history, but just over a week later, Microsoft significantly increased it by announcing the $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard. And at the end of that month, Sony said it would buy Destiny developer Bungie in a $3.6 billion deal.