Game Bytes: Take-Two Takes Zynga And E3 Remains Virtual
January is here and so is the New Year and a new year of Game Bytes. The first week of January didn’t have much in terms of video game news but this week we got some news with Activision and the future of E3. And while there weren’t many items, the first was a doozy.
On Jan. 10, Take-Two Interactive announced it would buy mobile games giant Zynga for $12.7 billion — easily the largest acquisition in videogame history. Take-Two, which owns studios Rockstar Games and 2K Games, among others, will pay cash and stock for all outstanding shares of Zynga. The deal is expected to close in June 2022 (oddly enough, the first fiscal quarter of Take-Two’s 2023 fiscal year) assuming it wins all regulatory approvals. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was clear in the announcement that it wants Zynga for its mobile and console expertise. The CEO of Zynga, Frank Gibeau, and Bernard Kim, president of publishing, will lead the new mobile division of Take-Two, even though it already has a unit called T2 Mobile Games.
On Jan. 4, Activision filed a lawsuit against EngineOwning, a distributor of cheats for Call of Duty: Warzone. This isn’t the first time Activision has taken steps against a cheat manufacturer for Call of Duty games. At Activision’s request, however, the cheat makers ceased development immediately, bringing the entire situation to a halt.
E3 won’t be an in-person event in 2022 for the third year in a row. The ESA has revealed that June’s E3 2022 will be an all-digital event. There was a hope that after two years of no physical E3, 2022’s event would be a hybrid of what we’ve had for the past two years and a traditional E3. Unfortunately, that will not be the case.
January hasn’t given us too many games as of yet, but we did get Deep Rock Galactic on the 4th. Coming up on the 12th is going to be the acclaimed Monster Hunter Rise (PC) edition and on the 13th will be Astroneer (Switch).
Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube and Twitch or any other platform you like to use for reviews, articles, cosplay and so much more of the content you all love.
