Bizarre crossing leads to most expensive game industry takeover
Major game studio Take Two buys another major game studio Zynga and the result is a $12.7 billion acquisition: the most expensive ever in the game industry!
In the corporate world, the high amounts are flying around you. Because if one big company wants to buy another big company, they both want to see money. Especially the buying party, of course. Never before has a company wanted to see so much money, but they gave in. And so Take Two Interactive Software bought the company Zynga in the most expensive acquisition in the game industry ever: $12.7 billion.
Take Two buys Zynga
First of all for those who have lost it for a while: which companies are these? Take Two Interactive Software is a publisher that, among other things, owns all the Rockstar Games studios in the world, which you may know from the Grand Theft Auto series. Zynga is also doing well, as it is the publisher of countless browser games and has recently started to focus on (very popular) mobile games. FarmVille, among others, is a major Zynga title.
Collaboration
Take Two and Zynga together have about $6 billion in annual sales, but why do they need it? Simple, because Take Two wants to focus more on mobile games. Zynga obviously has the know-how and the well-known titles in that. However, both parties announce that they can also cut spending if they have each other’s help. It is possible, because that 12.7 billion dollars must of course pay for itself a bit.
Official approval for the acquisition by shareholders of both companies has yet to be obtained, but otherwise all preparations appear to have been made. To put it in Dutch: costs a few cents, but then you also have something.
