Take-Two sells Private Division and almost all its games

• Take-Two’s indie publisher Private Division has sold to an undisclosed buyer
• The sale comes as Take-Two looks to prioritise “core” and mobile games

Take-Two Interactive has sold indie publisher Private Division as it looks to shift focus and resources to operations in “core” and mobile.

The publishing label has been sold for an undisclosed sum to an undisclosed buyer, who has also obtained the rights to live and unreleased Private Division games through this deal.

This covers all titles published by Private Division barring No Rest for the Wicked, a cross-platform RPG developed by Moon Studios, which Take-Two will continue to support.

Top priorities

Take-Two’s sale of Private Division comes during a time of ongoing financial losses at the company, recording some growth in revenue but failing to escape the red. Even with many Zynga titles on the rise on mobile, Take-Two lost $365.5 million in its latest quarter.

The company laid off Private Division staff last year to better align with “long-term priorities” and has since decided to sell the label entirely.

“We recently made the strategic decision to sell our Private Division label to focus our resources on growing our core and mobile businesses for the long-term,” said Take-Two president Karl Slatoff during the company’s Q2 conference call.

“We are grateful for the contributions that the Private Division team has made to our company and are confident that they will continue to achieve success in their new home.”

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick also told GamesIndustry.biz: “We made this strategic decision so that we could focus all of our resources on growing our core and mobile businesses for the long term. We’re really best at these big Triple-A experiences.

“We have the biggest intellectual properties in the interactive entertainment business, some of the biggest intellectual properties in the overall entertainment business and to make sequels to existing beloved franchises as well as to create new hit intellectual properties is our mission.”

He also noted that the identity of the buyer will be revealed in the relatively near future.

With Zynga projected to earn 51% of Take-Two’s net bookings alone this fiscal year, it’s clear why mobile games would rank highly among its priorities.

However, Private Division has also been working on a cross-platform Lord of the Rings game with Wētā Workshop, which Take-Two will no longer benefit from. It’s due to release on mobile for Netflix subscribers next year.