Take-Two is Buying Zynga in $12.7B Deal

Video game giant Take-Two is acquiring mobile gaming company Zynga, it said Monday. The deal is valued at around $12.7 billion, or $9.86 per Zynga share. From a report: Zynga publishes major social games like FarmVille and Words With Friends. Take-Two already owns game publishers Rockstar, which is behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, and 2K, known for BioShock, Borderlands, Civilization and NBA 2K.

$12 billion

[BcNexus]

Itâ(TM)s $3.50 in cash and $6.361 in shares of Take-Two common stock. Itâ(TM)s not leveraged so itâ(TM)s kind of like $12B Iâ(TM)m real money.. The value of the transaction is mind boggling. To put it into perspective, twelve billion seconds is 380 years.

Save BioShock

[DarkRookie2]

Someone needs to swoop in and save BioShock. The rest of Take Two's library has been getting more and more micro transaction filled messes.

OMG

[C_Kode]

OMG why? Not only why, but WTF @ the price!

Name one things about this company and it's financials that was ever a positive. Take Two is getting absolutely MUGGED.

A fool and their money is soon parted.

Re:

[DarkRookie2]

Zynga publishes major social games like FarmVille and Words With Friends.

That is why.

Re:

[cruff]

WWF has gotten even worse lately about attempting to keep you engaged in the game with stupid unrelated goals and pushing you to buy upgrades that have nothing to do with the base game play.

Re:

[C_Kode]

lol, Like I said. A fool and his money are soon parted.

Well..

[Mr.Fork]

What could possibly go wrong with Take-Two taking over another developer like Zynga at 2-3X actual market value (if you ignore the wonky-illogical share value)?

I mean, look how Rockstar has flourished under TT... wait a minute...

Re:

[Pinky's Brain]

If you're a Zynga insider with friends on the Take-Two board this is going exactly right.

If you're a Take-Two shareholder you're getting raped.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The really unpleasant prospect is that the comparatively massive valuation of Zynga might mean that it will end up the more influential party in the resulting company. Take Two are hardly saints; but it would not be an improvement if they are paying that much for Zynga because they wish to become more like them.

Is This a Joke?

[Thelasko]

Ba-Zynga! [knowyourmeme.com]

Cutting edge originality

[Dan East]

Has Zynga ever created an original game? Or is every single one of them a copy off of some other existing game, modified the minimal amount to avoid any copyright violation?

Re:

[Pinky's Brain]

Zynga seems the go to place for mobile developers to cash out the moment they have a hit game. The way they transform billions of revenue into losses is pretty spectacular.

Re:

[TheStatsMan]

While I worked at Zynga, the former CEO gave a presentation about how all of the company's biggest money makers were derivative works designed to aggressive monetize engaging mechanics from other games.

The whole company is built on copying good ideas and aggressively marketing to gullible demographics.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Do you remember the time that Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, told employees: "I don't fucking want innovation, you're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."?

Zynga doesn't just deliver derivative schlock through failure of imagination or crass pandering; their brand of banal takes leadership.

Re:

[bloodhawk]

To be fair that is actually a great business model, innovation is expensive and risky. "If" you can succeed by letting others do that then more power to you.

Re:

[tepples]

This tendency toward copying is something that Zynga happens to share with the GNOME Games developers.