GTA Parent Company Gets Into Soccer Games With Acquisition Of Top Eleven Studio Nordeus

Take-Two Interactive, the parent company 2K Games and Rockstar Games, has acquired the Serbian mobile game studio Nordeus for as much as $378 million.

Nordeus is best known for its soccer management game Top Eleven, which has 240 million registered users. The acquisition gives Take-Two yet another access point for the mobile game space, which is bigger than console and PC. Take-Two previously acquired mobile game studios Social Point and Playdots to accelerate its mobile offerings.

With Nordeus, Take-Two is getting into soccer games for the first time ever. Soccer adds to Take-Two's existing portfolio of sports games, including NBA 2K, WWE 2K, and PGA Tour 2K, while the company is reviving the NFL 2K series as an arcade game down the track. Soccer is the world's most popular sport, so this is a big move.

Nordeus existing management team--including Branko Milutinović (CEO), Milan Jovović (CCO), Ivan Stojisavljević (CTO), and Tomislav Mihajlović (COO)--will continue to run the company and its 180 employees.

Regarding the sale price, Take-Two is paying $225 million in cash up front, with $90 million more coming from Take-Two stock.

"We're delighted to be joining the Take-Two family," Miluntinović said. "From the start of our conversations with Strauss and the team, we found that we were connected with common values, culture, and a shared vision. From a start-up back in 2010, to what we are today, Nordeus has been built on giving the world more champions through great gaming experiences such as Top Eleven, while also rooting ourselves in the community in Serbia through our continuous efforts in giving back. We are excited to take both our products and our work locally, to the next level with them as we continue our aim of putting Serbia on the global map of gaming."