1993–2000: Formation and initial growth Take-Two Interactive was founded by Ryan Ashley Brant (1971–2019), the son of media executive and
Interview co-owner
Peter Brant. Ryan Brant had attended the
Hotchkiss School and the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May 1992. He began his career in May 1991, working for his father as the
chief operating officer of Stewart, Tabori & Chang, a publisher of illustrated books, until August 1993. As Brant wanted to forge his own path, he decided to create a video game publishing company. He stated "I wanted to get into a business where I could raise capital as a younger guy. In technology, people expect you to be a younger person." The business was launched with assistance from John Antinori and Mark Seremet. Seremet sold his stake in the company in 1998. By June 1994, the company had acquired and absorbed InterOptica, a software publisher owned by Wan Chai and headed by Catherine Winchester (later Heald); the latter became Take-Two's first
president. Later that month, Take-Two struck a deal with
GameTek that would see the publisher distribute five of Take-Two's games worldwide. Starting with
Star Crusader in September 1994, Take-Two found its first major success with games that included
full motion video with well-known live actors performing the parts, following the success that
Mechadeus had with
The Daedalus Encounter which featured
Tia Carrere. By July 1995, Take-Two had established its head office in the
Silicon Alley area of
New York City. Take-Two expanded in its Latrobe location and, in September 1996, took over the second floor of its office building, which had been occupied by the Chestnut Ridge Chapter of the
American Red Cross. Around 1996, the company was making about , but Brant wanted to further expand the company, and made its first acquisition of Mission Studios and publishing its
JetFighter III game in 1996. Brant decided to secure additional funds for acquisition by taking the company public. The company announced this intent in April 1997, looking to raise . The company had its
initial public offering (IPO) on April 15, 1997, being listed under the
ticker symbol TTWO on the
NASDAQ stock exchange. The opening price was , above the expected , and on its first day rose to . From the IPO, the company gained about along with on venture fund promissory notes. The company hired Kelly Sumner, a GameTek executive director, as part of this purchase. Additionally, the company acquired Inventory Management Systems, Creative Alliance Group, and Alliance Inventory Management, three video game distribution companies that helped to extend Take-Two's reach into the retail market. In March 1998, Take-Two acquired all assets of BMG Interactive for 1.85 million shares (16% of Take-Two's
common stock), worth about . In the previous year, the United Kingdom-based
DMA Design and BMG Entertainment had just released
Grand Theft Auto, and while it financially performed well but was not a critical success in Europe, it had sparked controversy over the use of violence in video games, with United States Senator
Joe Lieberman speaking out strongly against it. Seeing the opportunity to capture attention on the game, Brant had initiated the acquisition of BMG as to acquire the
Grand Theft Auto property, and at the same time, contacted BMG's
Sam and
Dan Houser (both instrumental to getting
Grand Theft Auto to market), Terry Donovan, and Jamie King to found a new label within Take-Two, called
Rockstar Games for which to develop more titles like it.
Electronic Arts' (EA) 2008 CEO,
John Riccitiello, stated that, with the establishing of Rockstar, Take-Two effectively invented the "label" corporate structure, which EA followed into in 2008. With the rights to
Grand Theft Auto, Take-Two expanded its publication into North America, and the game became Take-Two's first financial success with over 1.5 million copies sold. In 1999, Take-Two acquired DMA Design (ultimately renamed
Rockstar North), and invested into
Gathering of Developers and
Bungie (eventually transferred over to
Microsoft Game Studios). In September, the company also acquired Triad Distributors and Global Star Software, a video game distributor and publisher, respectively, both founded in 1993 by Craig McGauley and Damian Cristiani and operating out of the same offices in
Concord, Ontario, with the same management team. Israeli developer Pixel Broadband Studios was acquired for in March 2000, before Take-Two sold it off to
Gameplay.com in October that year, receiving in Gameplay.com shares in return.
2001–2006: Further acquisitions and regulatory investigations In February 2001, Brant stepped down as CEO of Take-Two to serve as its
chairman, being replaced in the former role by Sumner. With Rockstar, Take-Two invested into developments of sequels to
Grand Theft Auto, including
Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999), and
Grand Theft Auto III (2001) along with sequels,
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) and
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). By 2003, Take-Two had revenues exceeding . In 2002, the Take-Two name was dropped as a publishing label when the short-lived publishing label
Gotham Games was introduced. In 2004, Take-Two paid to
Infogrames for the rights to the
Civilization series. The company had also planned to acquire
Vivendi Universal Games for . In 2005, Take-Two began a host of acquisitions, spending more than buying game developers. One of its largest acquisitions was for the development studios
Visual Concepts and
Kush Games from
Sega for about in January 2005. Both studios had been extensively behind several sports simulation games, branded through
ESPN, and typically released updated versions each year, using a
2K brand to differentiate versions (such as
ESPN NFL 2K5). In 2004, Take-Two had struck a deal with Sega to help publish these titles. Just prior to Take-Two's acquisition,
Electronic Arts announced it had secured the exclusive rights to create video games based on the
National Football League (NFL) and a fifteen-year branding deal with
ESPN, effectively killing Visual Concepts' own NFL title and devaluing their other games. This decision led Sega to abandon the sports-game market. Take-Two acquired these studios and unique branding (including the
2K brand), as well as negotiated for exclusive rights with
Major League Baseball for video games. A day after announcing these acquisitions, Take-Two established its
2K publishing label to maintain the
2K brand, moving several planned games from its budget software label, Global Star, to 2K. Take-Two further realigned the other existing internal studios — Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software and Frog City Software, and Take-Two Licensing — within this new structure. After the formation of 2K, Take-Two completed other major acquisitions.
Firaxis Games was acquired in November 2005 for around ; Take-Two had already supported the studio by using its acquisition of the
Civilization license to support publishing of
Civilization IV.
Irrational Games was acquired around January 2006 for about , including both its Boston and its Canberra studio. It also acquired PAM Development from the Gaia Capital Group for , giving it access to the
Top Spin series of tennis games. A lawsuit was filed against Take-Two in December 2001, alleging that the company had lied to shareholders. Take-Two initially restated seven quarters of past financial results in February 2002, then five years in January 2004. Brant stepped down as chairman in March, being succeeded by Richard Roedel. In 2007, a separate investigation by the SEC found further issues with Brant and two other executives of the company. In an industry-wide sweep against
options backdating (receiving shares when they are priced high but backdating their ownership to when they were priced low), the SEC had found Brant had received backdating options of over 2.1 million shares, though he had excised all options upon his 2006 resignation. Brant pleaded guilty to falsifying business records, but agreed to co-operate with the SEC and instead of receiving up to four years in prison, was fined and barred from holding any "control management positions" in a publicly traded company. Brant died of
cardiac arrest in March 2019 at the age of 47. Further troubling Take-Two during this period was criticism and legal actions taken against the
Hot Coffee mod, a user-made
modification to
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that unlocked a hidden graphic sex scene that was built into the game, with concerned politicians and consumers stating the scene belied the game's
ESRB content rating. Actions taken against Take-Two included an investigation by the
Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising, to which Take-Two and Rockstar settled in 2006 on fines for any future violations of content ratings. Take-Two completed a settlement related to class-action lawsuits filed against it in 2005 over the
Hot Coffee mod, as well as to a class-action lawsuit brought by shareholders over the options backdating fraud, in September 2009.
2007–2008: Shareholder takeover and attempted buy-out A fire had damaged part of the Take-Two headquarters building in New York in 2006. In early January 2007, Take-Two relocated the headquarters for 2K to
Novato, California to 65,000 square feet of space at Hamilton Landing, an office park that had repurposed the former hangar structures from the
Hamilton Army Airfield. Later that year in September, Take-Two established a partnership with
Nickelodeon and launched a new label,
2K Play, designed for publishing of family-friendly titles alongside 2K's 2K Games and 2K Sports sub-labels, absorbing the remaining publishing duties of the Global Star label. In December 2007, Take-Two established
2K Marin (named after
Marin County, where Novato is located) and expanded its presence at Hamilton Landing. Due to the various SEC investigations and the
Hot Coffee controversy, investors in Take-Two discussed the possibility of taking over the company and ousting the current management at its next board meeting in March 2007. There were also issues with Take-Two failing to make its revenue targets, having lost in 2006. Investors OppenheimerFunds Inc., S.A.C. Capital Management, Tudor Investment Corp., D.E. Shaw Valence Portfolios and
ZelnickMedia held 46% of the company's stock at this point, and were looking to put ZelnickMedia's
Strauss Zelnick as the chairman of the board while ousting long-standing management and board members. Zelnick had previously been president and CEO of BMG's North American division at the time of the sale of BMG Interactive to Take-Two, a move he had been against, believing that BMG could have capitalized on the video game sector more. Prior to BMG, Zelnick had been COO of
20th Century Fox and CEO of
Crystal Dynamics. He founded ZelnickMedia in 2001 as a private equity firm to focus on media and interactive entertainment investments. Industry analyst Michael Pachter stated that a takeover would be best for Take-Two, as the present management "completely abdicated any responsibility for the oversight of the options-granting policy. A more responsible board would have committed hari-kari." CEO Paul Eibeler, who had replaced Brant after his resignation, had tried to find a buyer for Take-Two after the investors filed their intent with the SEC. Among the potential buyers were EA, but a deal could not be negotiated before the meeting. The takeover was successfully agreed to by stockholders on March 29, 2007, with Zelnick naming Ben Feder, a partner at ZelnickMedia, as the new CEO. The company announced a major restructuring in mid-2007, following the takeover. With the move of the 2K labels to Novato, the executive, management, distribution and sales areas were evaluated to align these by business discipline rather than geography. Subsequently, the company let go about 5 to 15% of its approximately 2,100 employees, closed down some of its European offices and centralizing these in its Geneva location, and looked to get out of the distribution market by looking for buyers of Jack of All Games. In mid-February 2008, EA made a -per-share all-cash transaction offer worth around to the board of Take-Two, subsequently revising it to per share after being rejected and making the offer known to the public. At the time, Take-Two's stock was valued around per share. EA CEO
John Riccitiello said that EA had previously considered a deal for Take-Two in the previous year when it was approached by Eibeler, Take-Two offered to discuss the offer after
Grand Theft Auto IV release on April 29, 2008, which many considered to be the lucrative property that EA desired. EA continued to extend its bid offer throughout 2008, but by September 2008, EA decided to back away and let the offer expire, as Take-Two continued to call EA's cash offer as inadequate.
2008–2018: Continued growth In September 2008, Take-Two established an outsourcing agreement with Ditan Distribution LLC, at the time owned by
Cinram, a Canadian manufacturer of optical media. Through the agreement, Take-Two offloaded all distributing duties from Jack of All Games to Ditan, while establishing the means for Jack of All Games to license and distribute third-party titles. Subsequently, in December 2009, Take-Two sold Jack of All Games to
Synnex for about , leaving the distribution market and focusing solely on development and publishing. In 2010, Ben Feder stepped down as CEO, and was replaced by Zelnick, who remains the company's chairman and CEO. In January 2013, while being dissolved,
THQ sold the rights of the
WWE wrestling games series to Take-Two. Subsequently, 2K Sports has published annual
WWE 2K games as part of its lineup. Around 2013, Take-Two began to
repurchase about 7.5 million outstanding shares of the company (about 10%), based on the company's projections that it would remain profitable over the next several years. As part of this, the company bought back around 12 million shares owned by
Carl Icahn, about 11% of the total shares, for about . Icahn had been seen as favoring selling the company to a buyer. This subsequently led to three board members who had been recommended on the board by Icahn to resign. The move to buy back shares was seen by analysts of the company's assurance in
Grand Theft Auto V, which was released in September 2013.
Grand Theft Auto V has since sold nearly 100 million units by 2018, making it one of the most successful video games ever and bringing an estimated to Take-Two, increasing its stock value by more than 600%. In December 2013, former
Marvel editor-in-chief
Bill Jemas announced that he had joined Take-Two to start a "graphic fiction imprint". The imprint,
Double Take Comics, was launched in October 2014, but ultimately was not successful and was shuttered in November 2016.
Leslie Benzies, former President of Rockstar North, took
sabbatical leave from Rockstar on September 1, 2014. In January 2016 it was announced that he had left the company. On April 12, 2016, Benzies started legal action against Rockstar and Take-Two claiming $150 million in unpaid royalties. Take-Two had invested into mobile-game developer
Scopely in July 2016. On February 1, 2017, the company acquired social and mobile game developer
Social Point for about to enter into the mobile gaming industry. In that same month, Take-Two and the
National Basketball Association (NBA) announced a partnership to create the
NBA 2K League, a professional eSports league based on the
NBA 2K games, and the first eSports league to be managed by a professional sports league. Teams for the League are to be partially sponsored by existing NBA teams, so that there would be eSports equivalent teams for each of the thirty professional NBA teams. The inaugural season is planned to launch in May 2018. On May 31, 2017, Take-Two Interactive acquired
Kerbal Space Program. Later, Take-Two announced the formation of its
Private Division publishing label on December 14, 2017. Private Division was established to fund and publish games by mid-size independent development studios, such as
Kerbal Space Program, and had four planned games from separate studios at its launch. The company completed its move of its New York headquarters from
NoHo to more than 61,000 square feet of space in
Bryant Park in early 2018. According to
Dan Houser, Rockstar Games required to expand in the two companies' shared headquarters and thus asked the Take-Two executives to move. On March 8, 2018, Zelnick attended a White House meeting held by the 45th president of the United States,
Donald Trump, along with various other attendees involved with the video game industry, and members of Congress, to discuss video game violence in the wake of the
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. On March 9, 2018,
S&P Global announced the addition of Take-Two Interactive to the
S&P 500, joining two other major video game publishers EA and
Activision Blizzard. Similar to the situation in 2013, Take-Two started buying back around of its stock (estimated to be about 2.5% of the outstanding stock), predicated on similar expectations that
Red Dead Redemption 2, to be released in October 2018, would similarly boost the company's profits as
Grand Theft Auto V had done. Sometime in 2018, Take-Two levied a legal warning against Benzies' new company Royal Circus Games, citing the similarity of its acronym (RCG) to Rockstar Games (RSG) as an infringement of intellectual property; due to this, Benzies later renamed his company Build a Rocket Boy Games in October 2018. Take-Two had also decried its employment of Rockstar North staff as a deceptive tactic to create an affiliation between them. Take-Two and the NBA signed a seven-year, licensing deal to extend Take-Two's rights to develop the
NBA 2K games in January 2019. Analysts estimated that this represented at least 15% of Take-Two's revenue from the sale of
NBA 2K games, atypical of other license deals, due to the growing popularity of the series.
2019–present: Studio expansions A then-yet-to-be named studio under the 2K brand in the
Silicon Valley region of the
San Francisco Bay Area was established by Take-Two in February 2019. The studio is led by
Michael Condrey, formerly of
Sledgehammer Games and
Visceral Games, and was initially working on an unannounced project. A year later, it was announced that the studio would be officially named
31st Union, that it was opening a second studio in Spain, and that it was focusing on "an ambitious and inspired new IP". On February 7, 2019, Benzies' litigation with Take-Two had officially come to an end. All parties involved in the case successfully executed a confidential settlement, with each agreeing to bear its own costs and expenses, including, without limitation, attorney's fees. In May 2019, Rockstar Games announced that it had acquired
Dhruva Interactive from
Starbreeze Studios for $7.9 million, with the sale having been finalized later that same month. The company had been merged into
Rockstar India, which added an additional 320 employees to the studio. In September 2019, Rockstar Games announced that it had released its own game launcher, a
digital distribution,
digital rights management,
multiplayer and communications service. Take-Two established a new, yet-to-be named studio under Private Division in February 2020, later named Intercept Games, located in Seattle to take on the development of
Kerbal Space Program 2. The new studio staff included more than a dozen former members of
Star Theory Games who had been working on the title, including Jeremy Ables and Nate Simpson from Star Theory, which had been previously handling the development of the game but outside of Take-Two's structure. Via 2K Sports, Take-Two established a new publishing agreement with the NFL in March 2020 to start republishing NFL games starting in 2021. While EA's
Madden series will coexist and remain the official game of the NFL, while 2K's are called "non-simulation football game experiences" to distinguish from EA's games. In August 2020, Take-Two announced it was acquiring mobile game developer Playdots (developer of the mobile games
Dots,
Two Dots and Dots & Co.) for $192 million in cash and stock with the acquisition expected to be completed in Q3 2020. In October 2020, it was announced that Take-Two had acquired
Dundee-based Ruffian Games (known for its work on
Halo: The Master Chief Collection and
Crackdown 3) after a year-long development partnership on an undisclosed partnership; following the acquisition, Ruffian became part of Rockstar Games as
Rockstar Dundee. Take-Two offered to buyout
Codemasters in November 2020 in a deal valued approximately . While the offer awaited regulatory approval and was expected to be complete by early 2021, both Take-Two and Codemasters' board of directors confirmed the deal. However, Take-Two's bid was subsequently trumped by
Electronic Arts in December 2020, which offered ( per share), and agreed to acquire Codemasters. Take-Two formally withdrew its offer in January 2021. The
Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia acquired 3.9 million shares of Take-Two, valued at , in February 2021. 2K acquired
HB Studios in March 2021, who previously developed
PGA Tour 2K21 and
The Golf Club 2019 featuring PGA Tour under 2K Sports' publishing labels. The acquisition includes the rights to the
PGA Tour games, which have the official endorsement of the
PGA Tour itself. Additionally, 2K announced it had secured a contract with
Tiger Woods, who had previously been a key figure for
Electronic Arts'
PGA Tour series, as an executive director and consultant for future 2K
PGA Tour games as well as his likeness for the games. Later that month, 2K acquired the games division of HookBang based in Austin, Texas, which had supported work on the
NBA 2K series in the past. The division was relocated to a new Austin location and rebranded as Visual Concepts Austin to continue support for that series. In June 2021, Take-Two made its largest acquisition to date with the $378 million acquisition of
Top Eleven developer
Nordeus, further expanding its mobile game division, which, as of July 2021, is known as T2 Mobile Games. Take-Two Interactive announced its intent to acquire the mobile developer
Zynga in January 2022, in a cash-and-stock deal with a value of $12.7 billion, with Take-Two acquiring all outstanding shares of Zynga at $9.86 apiece. The deal was expected to close in June. Take-Two said that the acquisition would help boost its presence in the
mobile gaming market, stating "We see tremendous untapped potential to bring Take-Two's renowned console and PC properties to mobile, a high-priority initiative that will be energized by the addition of Zynga's leading development, publishing, and live operations teams." Both shareholders of the companies approved the merger on May 19, 2022, and the closing of the transaction took effect on May 23, 2022. In October 2022, Take-Two announced that Playdots would be shut down, with control of Two Dots being transferred to Zynga. In March 2023, Take-Two acquired mobile games subscription service
GameClub for an undisclosed sum. That same month, Take-Two had layoffs impacting an unspecified number of employees at publishing label
Private Division and 30 employees at
Firaxis Games. In March 2024, Take-Two announced that it would acquire The Gearbox Entertainment Company, the parent of
Gearbox Software from
Embracer Group for $460 million. As part of the deal, Embracer would retain certain studios and titles that were held under Gearbox Entertainment. The acquisition was completed on June 12, 2024. In April 2024, Take-Two announced it would be laying off 5% of its workforce (579 employees) as part of a cost-reduction program. It also cancelled several unannounced projects. Take-Two shut down Intercept Games two months later. In July 2024, the
Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) labor union, of which numerous video game voice actors are members of, would initiate a
labor strike against a number of video publishers, including Take Two Interactive, over concerns about lack of
AI protections related to not only video game actors, but also the use of AI to replicate an actor's voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness. ==Company structure==