Take-Two Interactive, parent company of 2K Games and Rockstar Games, have acquired Codemasters for $994 million USD- nearly 1 billion USD. The deal will be done in the first quarter of 2021.
Take-Two will now house the racing game specialists, which recently bought Slightly Mad Studios. The annual Formula 1 racing game, Dirt Rally, Dirt and Grid series will now be under the Take-Two umbrella.
In the press release, one of the key rationale of the purchase is Take-Two believing it can “can bring benefits to Codemasters’ performance by leveraging Take-Two’s global distribution and marketing infrastructure, together with Take-Two’s core operating expertise in live operations, analytics, product development, and brand and performance marketing.” Codemasters have to rely on external partners to bring their games to Asia before.
This acquisition also strengthens Take-Two’s portfolio of sports and racing games. They now have another annual sports title- the yearly Formula 1 official games. Which should sit nicely with the NBA 2K, PGA Tour 2K, and WWE 2K series.
Hopefully the acquisition won’t disrupt the quality of the sole publisher that continues to release many racing games in the time where racing is a niche genre.