Take Two Interactive

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.
Type	Public (NASDAQ: TTWO)
Founded	1993
Headquarters	New York, New York, USA
Key people	Ben Feder (CEO, President) Strauss Zelnick (Chairman)
Industry	Computer and video game
Products	video games
Revenue	539.8 million USD (Q1 2008)
Employees	2,002 (2007)
Website	www.take2games.com

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO) is an American publisher, developer, and distributor of video and computer games and video game peripherals. The company's headquarters are in New York City, United States, with international headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Development studio locations include San Diego, Vancouver, Toronto and Austin, Texas.

Take-Two has developed and published many notable games, including the Grand Theft Auto series, the Midnight Club racing series, controversial games Manhunt and Manhunt 2 and most recently BioShock. It owns 2K Games, formerly Visual Concepts prior to its purchase from Sega, and publishes its popular 2K Sports titles. It also acted as the publisher of Bethesda Softwork's 2006 game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Take-Two is the target of a hostile takeover bid from rival Electronic Arts issued in February 2008. The bid expired August 18, 2008, and, according to Take-Two, will not be renewed.^[1] However, according to CNET, the two companies entered into confidential discussions on August 25, 2008.^[2]

Company history

In February of 1999, Take-Two published the game Biosys under the company Jumpstart Interactive, a point-and-click adventure which follows the protagonist Professor Alan Russell and is set inside the fictional ecological facility Biosphere Four.

In 2004 Take-Two formed two new publishing companies called 2K Games and 2K Sports to manage a group of newly acquired development studios as well as publishing deals with a variety of other well known studios. Take-Two acquired the rights to the ESPN 2K sports games (When EA announced the ESPN deal, they dropped "ESPN" from their games), created by Visual Concepts (football and basketball) and Kush Games (baseball and hockey), from Sega as part of the creation of 2K Sports. In the same year, Take-Two bought the rights to the Civilization game from Infogrames for $22.3 million.^[3][4]

In 2005, Take-Two embarked on acquisition spree and spent more than $80 million buying game developers.^[5] It bought for $32 million the development studios Visual Concepts and Kush Games, for $11.4 million Gaia Capital Group and for around $11.8 million the studio Irrational Games, which develops Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich. Then late that year in November, Take-Two acquired Firaxis for $27 million including possible performance bonuses. ^[6]

At the annual meeting on March 29, 2007, Take-Two investors ousted five of six board members, including the chief executive, Paul Eibeler, who was replaced by Ben Feder[1]

Ryan Brant, former chief executive of Take-Two Interactive Software, pleaded guilty in February 2007 to falsifying business records. He faced up to four years in prison but received a lighter sentence in a plea agreement after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors because he took it.[2]

In 2005, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a lawsuit that Brant, with the company's former chief financial officers, Larry Muller and James David Jr., and its head of sales, Robert Blau, inflated revenue in fiscal years 2000 and 2001.

In June the UFC filed a lawsuit against the company over the video game they created for the organization.[3]

On May 22, 2007 Oasys Mobile signed a deal to bring several of the Sid Meier licenses to the mobile market. The original Sid Meier games are developed by Take-Two's company Firaxis Games. Oasys will be bringing these games to the mobile market some time in 2008.^[7]

In March 2007 Take-Two filed a lawsuit against Jack Thompson, to prevent him from filing a public nuisance complaint in Florida court like he did with Bully.

Rival game company Electronic Arts revealed they had made a $25 p/share all cash transaction offer to the board of Take-Two in mid February 2008, subsequently revising it to $26 p/share after being rejected and making the offer known to the public.^[8] Rumors of a buyout had been floating around the internet several weeks prior.^[9] Stocks went up by 54% on Monday, following the Sunday announcement, closing over the $26 offer price, whilst EA's own stock prices went down by 5%, the largest loss in over a year.^[10]

EA's attempted takeover

In mid February 2008, EA proposed an acquisition of Take-Two Interactive for about $2 billion. According to Game Informer's April issue, EA CEO John Riccitiello said that EA considered a deal for Take-Two last spring but axed it at the last minute. Take-Two's board of directors declined the cash deal. But EA is still pursuing the acquisition of Take-Two, stating in a letter, "If you are unwilling to proceed on that basis, however, we may pursue other means, including the public disclosure of this letter, to bring our offer and the compelling value it represents to the attentions of Take-Two's shareholders." Later, Take-Two released a statement explaining why the company has rejected the offer, "In addition to undervaluing key elements of our business, EA's proposal fails to recognize the value we are building through our ongoing turnaround efforts, which will further revitalize Take-Two." Take-Two has offered to discuss the offer, after Grand Theft Auto IV comes out on April 29, 2008. If EA does acquire Take-Two, it will end the company's main competition in the sports genre of videogames. Both EA and Riccitiello believe that they can take Take-Two's games and sell more of them.^[11] The bid expired May 15^th, 2008, however EA extended the offer until June 16^th, 2008, at the same price of $25.74 per share. Take-Two's position has not changed.

Notable franchises

Take-Two's subsidiary Rockstar Games created the Grand Theft Auto series, which includes Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto 2, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, and Grand Theft Auto IV. There are also lesser-known expansions to the original GTA on PlayStation and PC, Grand Theft Auto: London, 1969 and the PC only Grand Theft Auto: London, 1961.

As well as GTA, Rockstar developed several other action games, including Manhunt and State of Emergency. In other genres, Rockstar creations include Midnight Club and its sequels, the Western-themed Red Dead Revolver (originally developed by Capcom), and Bully.

Other Take-Two subsidiaries include Global Star Software, Gathering (formerly Gathering of Developers aka GoD Games), 2K Games, 2K Sports, Gotham Games, TalonSoft, Jack of All Games (its distribution arm), and Frog City Software (developer of the famous Imperialism game). 2K Games will be publishing the oft-delayed Duke Nukem Forever, though it is currently considered vaporware by many in the gaming community. Notable titles from Global Star include the Conflict series (the most recent game in which is Conflict: Global Storm); Sega's ESPN sports titles, for which 2K Sports was the publisher; and the Outlaw sports series, which includes Outlaw Golf and Outlaw Volleyball.

Company structure

• 2K Games
  • Firaxis Games (acquired in 2005)
    • Frog City Software (merged into Firaxis Games in 2006)
    • PopTop Software (merged into Firaxis Games in 2006)
  • 2K Boston/2K Australia (formerly known as Irrational Games, acquired in 2006)
  • 2K Czech (formerly Illusion Softworks)
  • 2K Marin
  • Take-Two Licensing (formerly known as TDK Mediactive)
  • Venom Games, Ltd. (acquired in September 2004; closed in July 2008)
• 2K Sports
  • Visual Concepts
  • Kush Games (defunct 2008)
  • Indie Built, Inc. (acquired in 2004; closed April 28 2006)
  • PAM Development (acquired in 2006)
• 2K Play
• Global Star Software (closed; some brands merged into 2K Play)
• Gathering of Developers (closed; brands merged into Rockstar and 2K)
• Gotham Games (closed)
• TalonSoft (closed in 2005; most brands sold to Matrix Games)
• Jack of All Games (distribution arm of Take-Two)
• Rockstar Games, Ltd.
  • Rockstar North (formerly known as DMA Design)
  • Rockstar Leeds (formerly known as Mobius Entertainment)
  • Rockstar Japan
  • Rockstar London
  • Rockstar Vancouver (formerly known as Barking Dog Studios)
  • Rockstar San Diego (formerly known as Angel Studios)
  • Rockstar Toronto (formerly known as Rockstar Canada)
  • Rockstar Vienna (formerly known as neo Software; closed May 11 2006)
  • Rockstar Lincoln (formerly known as Tarantula Studios)
  • Rockstar New England (formerly known as Mad Doc Software)

References

External links

• Take-Two's Official Site
• Rockstar Games Official Site
• Gathering Official Site
• 2K Games Official Site
• 2K Sports Official Site (2K Games' sports games label)
• Global Star Software Official Site
• Jack Of All Games Official Site
• Venom Games Official Site
• Take-Two Interactive entry at MobyGames
• EA website about the buyout of Take-Two