Take-Two Interactive, the massive gaming publishing company behind Rockstar and Private Division, is expanding into the mobile gaming market with a record-setting acquisition. The company is currently set to acquire Zynga games, the mobile gaming giant behind Farmville, for a mind-boggling $12.7 billion.
The purchase, being made with a mix of cash and stocks, marks the most expensive acquisition ever in the gaming industry, beating out Chinese media conglomerate Tencent’s 2016 acquisition of Supercell, which cost the company 8.6 billion at the time. Take-Two’s deal likewise trumps other recent notable acquisitions, including Microsoft’s purchase of ZeniMax Media in 2020 for $7.5 billion, which gave the tech giant the rights to The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Fallout, and Dishonored franchises.
While Zynga may not be a household name for anyone playing games on consoles or a gaming PC, the company is behind some of the biggest mobile games on the market. Best known for developing FarmVille, which gained an enormous amount of popularity on Facebook, Zynga now leads the mobile gaming market with games like Words With Friends, Golf Rival, and more. According to a press release, Zynga’s games have been downloaded over 4 billion times on mobile devices.
With its acquisition of Zynga, which is planned to be completed on June 30, 2022, Take-Two is poised to make an aggressive push into the mobile gaming market. “This strategic combination brings together our best-in-class console and PC franchises, with a market-leading, diversified mobile publishing platform that has a rich history of innovation and creativity,” said Take-Two Interactive chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick.
Take-Two’s specific plans for Zynga are still unclear. While the mobile giant will be a vehicle for Take-Two to have a larger slice of the mobile gaming market pie, just how the company will actually achieve that is a mystery. It’s entirely possible that, if the acquisition is completed, we could see more Grand Theft Auto games on mobile devices in the near future.
