If you’ve been paying attention to the video game world over the last few years, you’ll know that one of the keywords that have been going around in various ways is that of “acquisitions”. Because there are a TON of developers and publishers going and buying other video game developers and creators for a variety of purposes. For ones like Microsoft and Sony (and Nintendo to a lesser extent), they’re doing this to help shore up their gaming lineup and know they have some of the best devs under their banner. But others are doing this two, like with Take-Two Interactive, who made one of the bigger purchases of the lot when they went and acquired none other than hit mobile developer Zynga.
As you all likely know, mobile gaming is arguably the most dominant part of the video game industry right now for multiple reasons. A) just about everyone has a phone and thus they can play a game on it. B) people have long since gotten over the fact that microtransactions are a thing in gaming and thus if the title is right they’ll shell out a LOT of money on it (just look at Diablo Immortal for proof of that, just saying) and C) You can make a lot of money on a mobile game that honestly doesn’t cost that much to make.
So given that Take-Two is a successful developer on the console scale, but could always be doing better, getting someone like Zynga to elevate them to a new level is indeed a wise move. And at their first quarterly briefing since the merger, the numbers that have been revealed indeed prove that this was the right move.
For example, just in terms of their “net bookings”, the company was up 41%. In terms of player spending overall, they were up 48%! That one is impressive because remember that TTI is the team behind GTA Online and Red Dead Online, which gets them a LOT of money.
As if that isn’t enough of a reason for the team to believe they made the right call with getting Zynga, they also stated that about 50% of their revenue from fiscal year 2023 is likely to come from the mobile games they now profit from. That’s a lot!
And in a chat with IGN, the CEO of the company even noted that they are going to be looking to do spinoffs of their IP in mobile format because they know that Zynga can pull it off with the passion they have for such modes of gaming.
So while some companies need to wait a while to see what payoffs their mergers have, Take-Two is seeing the payoff right now, and they’re loving it.
Source: IGN
