Like a spurned lover, Microsoft quickly pivoted from its failed TikTok bid and dropped a cool $7.5B to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of game publisher Bethesda Softworks (Doom, Fallout, Elder Scrolls).
It’s Microsoft’s largest game acquisition ever and the tech giant’s 11th acquisition of $1B+ since 1987.
Here are the others, with our takes on the deals:
- The priciest (and spammiest) acquisition: LinkedIn for $26.2B in 2016.
- The “I’ve never heard of this company, but its early employees are def way richer than me” acquisition: Fast Search & Transfer for $1.2B in 2008.
- The “Are these tech companies or the place we get our eyewear prescriptions done?” acquisitions: Tied — Visio Corp ($1.4B in 1999) and Navision ($1.2B in 2002).
- The Ron Burgundy “I immediately regret this decision” acquisition: Tied — Skype for $8.5B in 2011 and Nokia for $7.2B in 2014.
- The “Let’s piss off software engineers” acquisition: GitHub for $7.5B in 2018.
- The “Parents love this because it’s a nanny substitute” acquisition: Mojang (Minecraft) for $2.5B in 2014.
- The “Who needs Zuckerberg when you can have David Sacks?” acquisition: Yammer for $1.2B in 2012.
