There are few sure bets, but there's no doubt that GTA 6 will become an instant blockbuster when it hits the market. Released over ten years ago, its predecessor GTA 5 continues to top the US video game sales charts.
Take-Two only counts the 410 million-selling GTA franchise in its portfolio. NBA 2K has sold over 140 million titles; Red Dead Redemption and Borderlands have sold 81 million titles each; Civilization is approaching 70 million sales; and BioShock has sold over 40 million titles.
The New York-based publisher says it has never had a pipeline of projects as varied and full as it does today. This abundance is not unrelated to its mobile division, consolidated by the acquisition of Zynga, bought in 2023 for $12.7 billion, i.e. x4.5 its sales.
The mobile segment represents more than half of the global video game market. With this acquisition, add-ons, widgets and DLCs will account for four-fifths of Take-Two's sales, compared with two-thirds previously; an expansion of margins should logically follow.
The pitfall of the video game publisher's business model is actually that it's much more capital-intensive than it is profitable. in reality much more capital-intensive than it appears, since these groups must constantly reinvest in their catalogs, which sometimes have a very short lifespan.
Not to mention the cost of external growth. Excluding the part of the Zynga takeover financed via new Take-Two shares, the $4 billion in cash profits - or "free cash flows" - accumulated over the last decade have been entirely absorbed by acquisitions. While sales quadrupled over the period, earnings power remained more erratic.
These characteristics make it particularly difficult to value publishers on a standalone basis. Their value on the private market, on the other hand, is far less questionable. The benchmark transaction in this respect remains Microsoft's offer for Activision, valued at x7.5 its sales and x20 its EBITDA.
If sales targets for the new GTA opus are in line with analysts' projections, Take-Two would currently be valued at x3 its sales and x12 its EBITDA, expected within the next twenty-four months.