Take-Two Interactive, a household name in the gaming industry and acquired Zynga, another popular company that made FarmVille and Zynga poker for $12.7 billion.
According to the announcement by Zynga, stockholders will receive $3.50 in cash and $6.36 in shares of Take-Two Interactive stock for each share of Zynga stock outstanding at the closing of the transaction.
The price represents a premium of 64% to Zynga’s closing share price on January 7, 2022, with the deal expected to close on June 30 after the approval of the board members and regulators.
Rockstar Games and 2K Games are subsidiaries of Take-Two Interactive with numerous classic titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Borderlands, Dead Redemption, and NBA 2K.
On the other hand, Zynga became popular during the Facebook gaming boom with titles such as FarmVille, Zynga Poker, and Words With Friends.
Through a conference call, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive quoted that Zynga would allow them to “tackle new “Web3 opportunities.”
It was only last year when Zynga with a series of announcements revealed that the company is looking toward NFT gaming. Specifically, Zynga appointed Matt Wolf as its vice president of Blockchain gaming and plans to enable Non-Fungible Tokens in its existing and new IPs.
A few weeks ago, on December 21, 2021, Forte became the preferable platform for Zynga but the company hasn’t announced any NFT-Based title yet.
In terms of NFTs, it’s very early days. It’s a process that I think conceptually we have a lot of faith and belief in—the idea that players will play-to-earn or play-to-own is a very compelling idea that we think will have legs as the industry develops.
Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau
Take-Two Interactive and Zynga are not the only mainstream gaming companies to develop an interest in Blockchain Gaming. Recently, Ubisoft launched an NFT platform using Tezos for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. Square Enix, Atari, and Electronic Arts are some of the companies looking forward to integrating NFTs and creating community-owned game economies.
Is the gaming community ready for NFT Gaming?
Ubisoft’s second NFT initiative (the first was Rabbid Token) wasn’t welcomed by the majority of gamers forcing Ubisoft to unlist the Youtube trailer video.
Some could say the NFT integration in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is pointless and maybe they are right, but it’s a start.
The majority of people perceive NFTs as a quick cash-grab scheme mostly to the hideous NFT mints by Celebrities who sell worthless NFTs for a high price tag. On the other hand, scamming and rug-pulls have become really popular within the decentralized community due to the nature of blockchain.
One thing that’s for sure, blockchain gaming is just getting started, giant game studios are jumping in and we have yet to see the best. More monetization models will be invented, better games will arrive and NFT gaming will be the new normal.