Member-only story
The Video Game Wars Are Just Beginning
Take-Two’s acquisition of Zynga is a signal of what’s to come
Take-Two Interactive’s $12.7 billion deal to acquire mobile game company Zynga says one thing: gaming companies are finally ready to up their spending game in search of more eyeballs.
Acquisitions and mergers in this space are nothing new. Electronic Arts (EA) spent over $3 billion to acquire smaller studios in 2021. Take-Two shelled out $378 million to acquire a Nordeus — a mobile game studio focused on sports — and the company has slowly assembled a large group of studios over the past two decades to help it grow to its current size. Even Sony (PlayStation) and Microsoft (Xbox) upped their acquisition game in 2021, buying several studios and bringing them in-house, allowing them to release even more exclusive games in the seemingly never-ending battle for console supremacy.
But this specific deal, and the high premium attached to Zynga’s market value, showcases the quiet war happening between game developers.
Before Take-Two’s deal for Zynga, it was lagging behind the top four gaming studios. As of November 2021, Roblox ($75 billion), Nintendo ($53 billion), Activision Blizzard ($47 billion), and EA ($35 billion) were all worth more than Take-Two ($20 billion). To become a true alpha in the…
