Take-Two has officially acquired Zynga

Take-Two has officially completed its $12.7 billion deal for social game developer Zynga, the two companies announced Monday. With the acquisition, Take-Two not only takes ownership of big Zynga franchises like FarmVille but also gets access to Zynga’s expertise building hugely popular free-to-play mobile games.

Many notable game studios have invested heavily into mobile, and some of the biggest titles have proven to be absolutely massive revenue drivers. For example, Activision’s Call of Duty: Mobile, which launched in October 2019, recently surpassed $1.5 billion in lifetime revenue, according to Sensor Tower. And in November, Sensor Tower said Krafton’s PUBG Mobile surpassed an eye-popping $7 billion in lifetime revenue. (Tencent is significantly involved with the development of both of those titles, by the way.)

Take-Two, which owns major properties like Grand Theft Auto, BioShock, and Civilization, likely wants to get in on that mobile money, and it said in an investor presentation at the time of the deal that it plans to bring more of its franchises to mobile platforms with the help of Zynga.

The deal was first revealed in January in what ultimately kicked off a series of blockbuster gaming acquisition announcements. At the time, Take-Two’s Zynga buy was considered one of the biggest acquisitions in video game history, but just over a week later, Microsoft upped it significantly by announcing its $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard. And at the end of that month, Sony said it would be buying Destiny developer Bungie in a $3.6 billion deal.