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Take-Two Interactive
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Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American publisher, developer, and distributor of video 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. In 2008, Take-Two Interactive ranked 28th on the list of the list of the largest software companies in the world.
Take-Two has developed and published many notable games, including the British Grand Theft Auto series, the Serious Sam shooter series, the Midnight Club racing series, controversial games Manhunt and Manhunt 2 and most recently BioShock.
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Encyclopedia
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American publisher, developer, and distributor of video 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. In 2008, Take-Two Interactive ranked 28th on the list of the list of the largest software companies in the world.
Take-Two has developed and published many notable games, including the British Grand Theft Auto series, the Serious Sam shooter 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 Softworks' 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. However, according to CNET, the two companies entered into confidential discussions on August 25, 2008.
History
In February 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 in order 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.
In 2005, Take-Two embarked on acquisition spree and spent more than $80 million buying game developers. 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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. Rumors of a buyout had been floating around the internet several weeks prior. 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.
Attempted takeover by Electronic Arts
In mid-February 2008, Electronic Arts (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 offered to discuss the offer for after Grand Theft Auto IVs release on April 29, 2008. If EA does acquire Take-Two, it will end the company's main competition in the sports genre of video games. The bid expired May 15th, 2008, however EA extended the offer until June 16th, 2008, at the same price of $25.74 per share. Take-Two's position has not changed. On September 14, 2008, EA announced that they decided to let the $2 Billion offer to buy Take-Two expire.
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's 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 games, for which 2K Sports was the publisher; and the Outlaw sports series, which includes Outlaw Golf and Outlaw Volleyball.
Company structure
External links
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