Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher that owns Rockstar, 2K, and Private Division, has completed its acquisition of Zynga, the mobile game developer behind the popular Facebook game FarmVille.
On January 10, Take-Two announced it was going to acquire Zynga for $12.7 billion in its effort to expand to the mobile gaming market. On Monday, the company closed the deal without a hitch, successfully merging its gaming library with Zynga’s entire library of mobile games that have been downloaded more than 4 billion times, including FarmVille and Words with Friends.
Strauss Zelnick, CEO and chairman of Take-Two, said the merger was vital for the company to add mobile gaming to its portfolio in order and to generate more revenue with Zynga’s expertise. “As we bring together our exceptional talent, exciting pipelines of games, and industry-leading technologies and capabilities, we believe that we can take our portfolio to another level of creativity, innovation, and quality,” he said in a press release.
Frank Gibeau, CEO of Zynga, concurred with Zelnick’s sentiment: “We are excited for Zynga’s next-generation mobile platform, free-to-play expertise, diverse offering of games, and incredible team to join the Take-Two family. We are eager to continue building an unparalleled portfolio of games that will reach broader markets and lead to continued growth for this next chapter of Zynga’s history.”
At the time Take-Two announced its plans to buy Zynga, it was considered the most expensive deal in the gaming industry. However, Microsoft dropped a bombshell one week later with its plans to purchase Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, which was purely coincidental considering the controversial circumstances surrounding such a deal.
Per the terms of the agreement, Zynga stockholders received $3.50 in cash and 0.0406 of Take-Two common stock per share of Zynga common stock. Shareholders voted to approve the deal on Thursday.