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Take-Two Interactive to acquire social game developer Zynga in $12.7 billion deal

Take-Two Interactive to acquire social game developer Zynga in $12.7 billion deal

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The deal may be the biggest in video game history

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Zynga logo seen outside the top corner of the building on Tuesday, May 28, 2019 in San Francisco, Calif. Zynga is selling its headquarters building, but will lease it back and remained headquartered there
Photo by Liz Hafalia/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher that owns Rockstar and 2K Games, is set to acquire social game developer Zynga in a deal valued at $12.7 billion (via The Wall Street Journal). The cash and stock transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023, pending regulatory approval.

Take-Two Interactive’s acquisition of Zynga marks the company’s foray into the mobile game market. Take-Two is behind some of the most well-known game series, including Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock, Borderlands, and NBA 2K.

Take-Two’s $12.7 billion acquisition is one of the biggest in video game history

Meanwhile, Zynga has a pretty impressive portfolio of its own, defining a genre by planting some of its earliest games, like FarmVille, on Facebook. The mobile game developer also created the ultra-popular Words With Friends, which eventually made its way to Messenger. The company is also set to roll out an Among Us-like game on Snapchat, called Revamp.

“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,” said Frank Gibeau, the CEO of Zynga.

Take-Two’s $12.7 billion acquisition is one of the biggest in video game history, by a pretty big margin — ahead of even Microsoft’s $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda, which was finalized last March, and Tencent’s $8.57 billion acquisition of a majority stake in Supercell.