Take-Two wants to bring its IPs to mobile, it is the publisher of GTA, Red Dead Redemption and Borderlands

Take Two the giant publisher at the head of Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto and Red Redemption) and 2K Games (Borderlands, Bioshock and sports games such as NBA 2K) has reiterated its desire to bring its major franchises to mobile devices leveraging up Zyngaalthough the plan was put on the back burner.

For those who don’t know, it is a company highly specialized in titles for iOS and Android and author of successes such as FarmVille and Words with Friends. It was acquired by Take-Two in 2022 for ben 12.7 billion dollarsone of the most expensive acquisitions ever in the gaming industry.

CEO Strauss Zelnick’s words on Take-Two’s mobile plans

Already at the time of the acquisition, the company had expressed its desire to make use of Zynga’s expertise to create mobile games of its most successful IPs. However, just as Rome was not built in 7 days, similarly a similar operation takes time and for the moment we have not seen, for example, a GTA or a Borderlands made specifically for iOS and Android.

In an interview given during a conference by TD Cowen, when asked if Take-Two had made any progress in this direction in the last two years or if even the idea of ​​​​making mobile versions of Rockstar Game and 2K Games games was still standing, CEO Strauss Zelnick responded:

“It’s nice of you to ask that way,” Zelnick responded. “What you’re really saying is, ‘You didn’t do that, what happened?’ And the answer is, and I said this at the time too, ‘this is an opportunity to create revenue synergies, but probably it’s not the best, because even i Mobile titles based on established traditional IPs can failand the biggest titles in mobile are obviously games built from the ground up specifically for that market.”

“Now, what people are asking is, ‘Why don’t you do what Activision did with Call of Duty Mobile?’ But the answer is that Call of Duty is a superset. Pretty much everything else pales in comparison in our space “. Incidentally, Call of Duty Mobile has totaled 650 million downloads in 2022, three years after launch.

“So we realized that the biggest hits in mobile tend to be native games for this market, Match Factory is a great example. That said, I would love to be able to announce a hit mobile title based on an old Take-Two IP, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to do itbut you’re right that this plan has been put on the back burner a bit in favor of a bunch of other opportunities.”