Rockstar's parent company isn't planning to follow Electronic Arts into private hands. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told David Rubenstein that the company "can do very well as an independent company."
"We are not in a place where we need to be part of a bigger organization to be competitive. And in the entertainment business, scale matters."
The question came for a reason. EA was recently taken private in a $55 billion deal with an investor consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and Rubenstein pointed out that several of Take-Two's big rivals had already been sold or taken off the market. According to Power Up Gaming, the interview was recorded on October 19 and went up on YouTube on November 12.
Zelnick's case comes down to size and money. Take-Two is already "at scale," he said, with a "terrific balance sheet," and it should be a net cash company again by the end of this fiscal year. Publishers making less than a billion dollars a year may genuinely struggle to develop, market and distribute games at scale, but past a certain point extra size stops paying off - and in his view Take-Two is beyond that point.
He stopped short of a flat "never," noting that Take-Two is publicly traded and answers to its shareholders. He also described how the publisher grew from relying on a single series to 15 substantial franchises, with Rockstar still at the center through Grand Theft Auto and the Max Payne remakes.
GameSpot puts Take-Two's market cap above $42 billion, and that's before GTA 6 launches. If the game sells anywhere near expectations, any would-be buyer would need an even bigger check than the one that bought EA.
Source: GameSpot, Power Up Gaming, GamesRadar+
