Take-Two Interactive acquires Zynga for record amount

This story about the biggest gaming deal, boiled down, in 1:38 minutes.

What's the fuss?

The parent company behind the games such as Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K just acquired a mobile game studio for a record amount of money. This move has much wider implications.

The situation

Remember Farmville?

• The company behind the Facebook game you may have played, Zynga, has grown an exorbitant amount since their first hit.
• Through executing their own acquisitions of smaller studios, Zynga's mobile game portfolio has grown extensively and have even become a publicly traded company.

Zynga certainly has become an orca in size, but it just got swallowed up by the blue whale that is Take-Two Interactive.

• The company that owns Rockstar and 2K just acquired Zynga for approximately $12.7 billion through a combination of cash and stock.
• This amount may certainly be the biggest gaming deal of all time, outstripping how much Microsoft bought Bethesda Game Studios for or even how much Disney bought Star Wars for.

Boiling it down

Take-Two seems to be betting big on free-to-play mobile games - Zynga's specialty.

• Free-to-play games make more money than traditional paid video games because of their microtransaction-full monetization strategy where players can literally spend thousands.
• Take-Two wants to capitalize on the skyrocketed popularity of mobile gaming and the mountains of cash that comes with it.

Given Take-Two's lavish portfolio of games from its studios, it makes sense that they want to adapt their biggest franchises into mobile games.

• Although many of their existing games are already full of microtransactions, Take-Two will likely use the existing free-to-play mobile landscape as an excuse to nickel-and-dime their players even more...
• ... and since their franchises are household names, millions of gamers will fall for it.

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider subscribing if you enjoy stories like this delivered directly to you every Tuesday and Friday morning!

Any and all feedback is valid and welcome.