Parent company of Rockstar and 2K, Take-Two Interactive recently announced that it would be acquiring the mobile gaming giant Zynga for a sum of a whopping $12.7 billion. In an investor call following the announcement, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick shared more plans on what the company plans to do with this acquisition.
Zelnick has confirmed that Zynga will help bring Take-Two’s most popular core franchises – which includes the likes of Red Dead, GTA, Borderlands, NBA 2K, and more – to mobile platforms. He talked about how the company’s most popular IPs are essentially completely absent in the mobile space, and how Zynga will help change that. According to Zelnick, that the list of possibilities is endless.
“Perhaps most importantly we have the ability together, from both a development and a publishing point of view, to optimise the creation of new titles based on Take-Two’s core intellectual property,” Zelnick said (as reported by VGC).
“We believe we have the best collection of console and PC intellectual property in the interactive entertainment business and it’s basically nearly entirely un-exploited from mobile and free-to-play around the world. Zynga’s best-in-class studios can help us develop that property.
“Their best-in-class free-to-play mobile publishing operations can bring that to consumers, delight those consumers and create recurrent consumer spending along the way. The list is endless and it’s early days. We’re just thrilled to have this opportunity to be able to work together and create what we’re certain will be of extraordinary value going forward.”
Zelnick also talked about the timeline for when to expect to see the company’s biggest IPs make the jump to mobile, which doesn’t all that far out.
“In terms of development, we need to make sure that we identify the right studio and that we observe the creative process. But as you know, mobile development is not the same as console development,” he said. “We are already in the mobile development business, Zynga is incredibly expert in mobile development, and we would hope to be able to bring properties to market relatively soon.”
“On the mobile platforms some of the fastest growing franchises recently have been what have been traditionally defined as core franchises, if you look at the emergence of the shooter category for example, or action adventure,” added Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau. “So from our perspective, by partnering with Take-Two we’ve got the opportunity to work collaboratively against new categories with new opportunities to create franchises, and potentially bring existing franchises to the mobile platform.”
The prospect of Take-Two biggest IPs making the jump to mobile seems to be a financially lucrative one, to say the very least, considering how much money games like GTA Online, Red Dead Online, and NBA titles bring on a recurring basis with their microtransaction-fueled economies. There’s also the possibility of seeing dormant franchises like Midnight Club finding a new home through the mobile platform as well.
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