Take-Two Interactive

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.

Company type	Public (Nasdaq: TTWO)
Industry	Video games
Founded	1993
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Key people	Ben Feder (CEO, President) Strauss Zelnick (Chairman)
Products	BioShock series Civilization series Grand Theft Auto series Mafia series Manhunt series Max Payne series Midnight Club series MLB 2K series NBA 2K series NHL 2K series Railroad Tycoon series Serious Sam series Stronghold series Tropico series
Revenue	$1,537.5 billion USD (2008)
Operating income	629,384,000 United States dollar (2021)
Net income	$97.1 million USD (2008)
Total assets	6,028,218,000 United States dollar (2021)
Number of employees	2,002 (2007)
Website	www.take2games.com

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTWO) (or Take-Two, also known as Take2) 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. Take-Two has developed and published many notable games, including the 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.

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.

On September 8, 2008, They entered into an outsourcing agreement with Ditan Distribution LLC. Ditan assumes the responsibility for the pick, pack, ship and warehousing functions for Take-Two's publishing and distribution businesses previously handled by Take-Two's Jack of All Games subsidiary. The agreement allows Jack of All Games, to primarily sell third-party products, to focus on purchasing, sales and service for their customers.

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 IV's 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 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. On September 14, 2008, EA announced that they decided to let the $2 Billion offer to buy Take-Two expire.

Subsidiaries

Current

• Jack of All Games in West Chester, Ohio, founded in 1990 as Hyde Park Distributors, and acquired in 1998.
• PAM Development in Paris, France, founded in 1997, acquired in 2006.
• Rockstar Games, Ltd. in New York, New York, founded in 1998.
  • Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland, founded in 1998 as DMA Design, acquired from Infogrames in September 1999.
  • Rockstar Leeds in West Yorkshire, England, founded as Mobius Entertainment in 1993.
  • Rockstar Japan in Tokyo, Japan, started 2005.
  • Rockstar London, started in 2005.
  • Rockstar Vancouver, founded in May 1998 as Barking Dog Studios, acquired August 2002.
  • Rockstar San Diego, founded in 1984 as Angel Studios, acquired November 2002.
  • Rockstar Toronto in Ontario, Canada, started as Rockstar Canada in 1999.
  • Rockstar Lincoln in Lincolnshire, England, founded in 1997 as Tarantula Studios.
  • Rockstar New England in Andover, Massachusetts, founded in 1999 as Mad Doc Software.
• Take-Two Licensing, founded on September 11, 2000 as TDK Mediactive, acquired in December 2003.
• 2K Games
  • Firaxis Games in Hunt Valley, Maryland, founded in 1996, acquired in 2005.
  • 2K Boston/2K Australiain Quincy, Massachusetts and Canberra, Australia, founded near Boston, Massachusetts as Irrational Games in 1997, acquired on January 9, 2006.
  • 2K China, established in 2006.
  • 2K Czech in Brno, Czech Republic, founded in 1997 as Illusion Softworks, acquired January 2008.
  • 2K Marin in Novato, California, started in 2007.
  • 2K Play in Ontario, Canada, founded as Global Star Software in 1992, acquired in 1999, name changed September 10, 2007.
• 2K Sports in California, founded as Visual Concepts, acquired from Sega in January 2005.

Defunct

• Frog City Software in San Francisco, California, founded in 1995, acquired by Gathering of Developers in 2004, consolidated into Firaxis Games in 2006.
• Gathering of Developers in Texas, founded January 1998, acquired May 2000, closed September 2004; brands merged into Rockstar and 2K.
• Gotham Games, started in 2002, eventually closed.
• Indie Built, Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah, founded as Access Software in 1983, acquired from Microsoft in 2004; closed April 28 2006.
• Kush Games in Camarillo, California closed in 2008.
• PopTop Software in St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1993, merged into Firaxis Games in 2006.
• TalonSoft in Baltimore, Maryland, founded in 1995, acquired in 2000, closed in 2005; most brands sold to Matrix Games.
• Rockstar Vienna, founded January 4, 1993 as neo Software, closed May 11 2006.
• Venom Games, Ltd. in Newcastle upon Tyne, founded in 2003, acquired in September 2004; closed in July 2008.

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,Grand Theft Auto IV, and Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars. 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 the award-winning Midnight Club racing series, which includes Midnight Club: Street Racing, Midnight Club II, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles, the Western-themed Red Dead Revolver (originally developed by Capcom), the sports game Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis, and Bully.

Other Take-Two subsidiaries include 2K Games, 2K Sports, Jack of All Games (its distribution arm), and Firaxis Games 2K Games will be publishing the oft-delayed Duke Nukem Forever, though it is currently considered vaporware by many in the gaming community - especially now that DNF's developer, 3DRealms, has closed for business. Sega's ESPN sports games, for which 2K Sports was the publisher; and the Outlaw sports series, which includes Outlaw Golf and Outlaw Volleyball.

External links

• Take-Two official website
• Take-Two Interactive entry at MobyGames