Take Two Interactive buys Monster Legends developer Social Point

Take Two Interactive, the parent company of console and PC game publishers like Rockstar Games and 2K Games, is making a bigger move into the free-to-play mobile game market. It announced today that it has acquired Social Point, the Spain-based mobile game developer of titles like Monster Legends and Dragon City, for $250 million.

In today’s announcement, Take Two stated that both Dragon City and Monster Legends have been downloaded 180 million times combined. Both have also been in the top 100 list of mobile games in the US with the largest gross amount of revenue since 2014. The company added that Social Point have a number of upcoming games they plan to launch in the next two years. The deal includes paying $175 million in cash, with the rest in Take Two stock.

Take Two has actually been quite busy in the mobile gaming market. Its Rockstar Games division has released mobile ports of several of its older Grand Theft Auto console and PC games, along with Max Payne and, most recently, Bully. The 2K Games brand has also launched a number of mobile versions of its games, like XCOM, Civilization Revolution and more.

However, the move to purchase Social Point likely represents a new strategy by Take Two to aggressively enter the very popular free-to-play mobile game industry. Rival Activision did much the same when it acquired Candy Crush Saga publisher King in 2015. However, Activision paid a huge $5.9 billion for King, so Take Two’s smaller purchase may be a better deal in the long run, especially if Social Point’s future titles turn out to be as popular as Monster Legends and Dragon City.

Would you like to see a free-to-play version of GTA or another Take Two franchise come to mobile devices? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!