Take-Two Interactive announces $12.7B deal to acquire Zynga

Gaming giant Take-Two Interactive has announced that it will acquire mobile gaming company Zynga in a $12.7 billion deal that could be one of the industry's largest.

The cash and stock deal, which the companies expect to close in the first quarter of 2023, will make Take-Two Interactive one of the largest publisher of mobile game.

Take-Two is known for game franchises like "Grand Theft Auto," "BioShock," and "Red Dead." Zynga, on the other hand, has re-established itself as a mobile juggernaut with titles such as "Words with Friends," "Farm Heroes" and "Zynga Poker" across iOS and other platforms.

"We are thrilled to announce our transformative transaction with Zynga, which significantly diversifies our business and establishes our leadership position in mobile, the fastest growing segment of the interactive entertainment industry," said Take-Two CEO and Chairman Strauss Zelnick.

As part of the deal, Zynga stockholders will receive $3.50 in cash and $6.36 in shares of Take-Two common stock for each share of Zynga stock they own at closing.

Take-Two said that the deal will result in about $6.1 billion of 12-month pro-forma net bookings. It will also help the company save about $100 million annually.

"Combining Zynga's expertise in mobile and next-generation platforms with Take-Two's best-in-class capabilities and intellectual property will enable us to further advance our mission to connect the world through games while achieving significant growth and synergies together," said Frank Gibeau, Zynga's CEO.

9 Comments

emig647 2446 comments · 20 Years

About 2 years ago

I really don’t understand this, especially when Bethesda was $7.5B.

Just going to leave this here: https://medium.com/halting-problem/zyngas-offices-now-worth-more-than-zynga-the-company-47a704d48249

winstoner71 117 comments · 7 Years

emig647 said:

I really don’t understand this, especially when Bethesda was $7.5B.
Just going to leave this here: https://medium.com/halting-problem/zyngas-offices-now-worth-more-than-zynga-the-company-47a704d48249

Because everyone has a phone. There isn’t one person out there who doesn’t have at least 1 game on their phone, be it if they play it or not. Mobile gaming is a huge deal, more so than any other platform.

robin huber 4025 comments · 22 Years

Words With Friends has gotten “improved” to the point of being unplayable. Why can’t they stop themselves from adding more and more “features.” They did finally offer a Classic version, but they couldn’t even keep their hands off it. Rather than find a way to make it cheat-proof, they just add legal cheats and hope you’ll pay for them. Suppose the new owners will make things even worse. Thank god for Letterpress, an Apple award-winning game that has stayed simple and elegant.

mike_galloway 115 comments · 4 Years

winstoner71 said:

emig647 said:

I really don’t understand this, especially when Bethesda was $7.5B.
Just going to leave this here: https://medium.com/halting-problem/zyngas-offices-now-worth-more-than-zynga-the-company-47a704d48249

Because everyone has a phone. There isn’t one person out there who doesn’t have at least 1 game on their phone, be it if they play it or not. Mobile gaming is a huge deal, more so than any other platform.

I had to look on my phone to confirm but - yes I am that one person - but to be fair, I have never played any sort of game on any sort of device - ever. Just not a fun kind of guy.

foregoneconclusion 2836 comments · 12 Years

emig647 said:

I really don’t understand this, especially when Bethesda was $7.5B.
Just going to leave this here: https://medium.com/halting-problem/zyngas-offices-now-worth-more-than-zynga-the-company-47a704d48249

Revenue from mobile gaming is now larger than revenue from PC gaming and console gaming combined. This is a point that I always make when people say Apple can't be taken seriously for gaming unless they do PC/console style AAA games.