It takes two to tango as Take-Two acquires Zynga, the creator of FarmVille

Zynga has developed many free-to-play games for mobile and desktop platforms over the years, including the original Farmville, Draw Something, and Words With Friends. For better or worse, the company was one of the pioneers in the spend-real-money-in-a-game genre, and now it’s being acquired by game publisher Take-Two for what can only be described as a boatload of money.

Take-Two and Zynga announced on Monday (via Android Police) that Take-Two has agreed to acquire Zynga “in a cash and stock transaction valued at $9.861 per Zynga share, based on the market close as of January 7, 2022, with a total enterprise value of approximately $12.7 billion.” For comparison, that’s slightly over five times what Microsoft paid for Minecraft creator Mojang in 2014, and nearly twice the cost of Microsoft’s more recent ZeniMax/Bethesda acquisition. That might seem like a lot of money for a company that isn’t producing big-budget games, but Zynga did report a revenue of $616 million during the last quarter of 2021, so it probably won’t take long for Take-Two to recoup the acquisition cost.

That's slightly over five times what Microsoft paid for Minecraft creator Mojang in 2014.

Zynga currently maintains dozens of games, including Draw Something, Boggle With Friends, Crosswords with Friends, FarmVille 2: Country Escape, FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape, FarmVille 3, Pick My Stuff, and Zynga Poker. The company has also developed a few games based on other intellectual property and franchises, including Wizard of Oz Magic Match, Wonka’s World of Candy, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, and Game of Thrones Slots Casino.

The announcement mentioned that Zynga has nearly 3,000 employees, and the deal opens the door for Zynga to create games based on Take-Two’s franchises. Take-Two has many popular game franchises under its belt, including Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, NBA 2K, BioShock, Borderlands, Civilization, Mafia, and Kerbal Space Program. I can’t wait for the inevitable Kerbal Space Program-themed gambling game — a farming game based on Civilization might be fun, though.

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