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EA Launches 'Hostile' Bid for GTA Publisher
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Mar 13, 2008 09:04 AM
from the here-we-go dept.
from the here-we-go dept.
Games news sites are reporting that EA has issued a new offering to Take-Two's shareholders in an attempt to purchase the company outright. Last month EA offered some $2 billion to Take-Two in an effort to accomplish the same goal. Take-Two declined, and EA took their offer public. Now, Electronic Arts is offering the price of some $26 per share to Take-Two's holders, a generous valuation. "Within ten business days Take-Two is required by law to publish, send or give to shareholders (and file with the Securities and Exchange Commission), a statement as to whether it recommends acceptance or rejection of the latest offer ... Since EA launched its February bid Take-Two said that other parties had approached it regarding a merger, but that it hadn't entered into negotiations with other companies about a deal."
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[+]
Electronic Arts Offers $2B For Take Two 173 comments
quanticle writes "The New York Times is reporting that EA has offered $2B for Take Two Entertainment. The effort appears to be a move to consolidate the two companies before Take Two releases the next iteration of its blockbuster franchise, Grand Theft Auto 4. Take Two has politely declined the offer."
[+]
EA Abandons Efforts To Take Over Take-Two 98 comments
Erik J writes "Electronic Arts has abandoned plans to absorb Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take-Two Interactive, the company announced earlier today. Following over half a year of hostile buyout offers by EA, the pair went into talks under a confidentiality agreement in late August. From the official announcement: 'EA continues to have a high regard for Take-Two's creative teams and products, [but] after careful consideration, including a management presentation and review of other due diligence materials provided by Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., EA has decided not to make a proposal to acquire Take-Two and has terminated discussions with Take-Two.' The announcement caused Take-Two's stock to drop by 30%, and analysts expect a bidding war to ensue for employment of the GTA creators."
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If this goes through.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If this goes through.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, except with EA in control, don't expect the same GTA edginess. More accurately - queue the nerfing of Rockstar Games.
Re:If this goes through.. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:If this goes through.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Remember when it use to be about family, apple pie, and fireworks and shit? Now it's all about the Benjamins.
I'm no big fan of Take-Two (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory Penny Arcade. Different company, but I still feel it applies here.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05 [penny-arcade.com]
Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two (Score:5, Interesting)
I watch them to do this to Maxis [wikipedia.org] after they bought them out. We went from an absolutely great concept (Sim City) that was implemented nearly perfectly in Sim City 2000 (given the technological limitations of the time) to unstable bloated garbage that cared more about pretty graphics (Sim City 3000) then gameplay and required Google's server farm to run at a decent speed....
And don't even get started on 'The Sims'. Even if I thought it was a good concept (which it might be -- but it's no Sim City, IMHO) WTF is up with twenty thousand different "expansion" packs? They neglected a great franchise (Sim City) in favor of using the brand name to push a crappy product that they sold in 30 different parts.
Why'd ya have to sell out Will?
Parent
Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two (Score:5, Informative)
Now don't get me wrong, I think EA has done a lot of bad to the gaming industry. Their exclusive contracts with the NFL and NCAA for football (which forced 2k Sports to go exclusive with the MLB), have in my eyes, ruined the sports game industry. Not to mention the worthless Sim City societies that EA recently put out, that wasn't even developed by Maxis.
Seriously though, if you want to> see a great game in development, one that will become the new Sim City, check out Cities Unlimited, http://cuplanet.com/ [cuplanet.com]. Monte Cristo is taking in a lot of public input on their forums for the new game and by all accounts it looks like the new Sim City that people have been waiting for.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Well actually Sim City 4 was, and still is, a solid effort from them. They expanded the ability to users to modify aspects of the game and there is still an active community creating user content 5 years after it came out. Many people complained that the game was becoming too complicated and thus didn't garner widespread success. But seriously to summarize the Sim City franchise and not include Sim City 4 does not do the game justice.
To be honest, I've never played Sim City 4. I found it pretty hard to justify giving EA any of my money after the disaster that was Sim City 3000 (combined with their questionable business/employment practices). I have heard some good things about Sim City 4 but I still think the franchise was largely ruined with all the focus on 'The Sims' and the bloatware/disaster that was Sim City 3000.
Perhaps part of that is nostalgia -- I grew up playing the original Sim City on SNES and Sim City 2000 was my fir
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe the technical answer is "truck loads of cash."
Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two (Score:5, Informative)
Now I'm not saying it's the best game in world, but it's certainly a success.
Parent
Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two (Score:4, Interesting)
Well that's what EA does. They're not in this industry to make great games and have a loyal fan base*, they're in it to make truck loads of cash in any way they can. This usually boils down to buying companies who have a loyal fan base and game names with good reputation, then driving them into the ground. I'm not saying EA is incapable of making good or original games, just that this is what they tend to do.
*I realize all companies are in it to make money. A lot of them consider good products and a loyal following to be a good move financially.
Parent
Women and Sims (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
EA makes crap games sometimes, especially when they buy a license they then want to milk. For example, from The Sims comes all the expansion packs, but also The Urbz and The Sims Online... Bunch of crap.
What nobody's giving EA credit for, however, is they do actually own up to their mistakes and work to improve on them.
Disclosure: I worked at EA Redwood Shores for 6 months in a creative position on a major title about a year ago now and the experience wa
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/15 [penny-arcade.com]
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Cut Yourself [penny-arcade.com]
EA Crap coding (Score:4, Insightful)
Forward to today, EA is touting the release of the addon to C&C3, but many bugs still exist in the game. I think the worst part is their online service, which seem to tie in all users regardless of location, which in many case pretty much guarantees a game with lag and dropouts. They've certainly got little on competitors like Blizzard, which - despite various other complaints about battle.net - generally has a reliable online experience, and has separate servers for the various world-regions.
EA is a bubblegum gaming company, and they turn all the companies they buy into such with little regard to quality or customer satisfaction.
Parent
Very Generous (Score:5, Informative)
So the reason it's so generous is because EA is paying their own price that was the result of them inflating Take Two's stock prices. They want this company. Badly. Desperation or good business move? I'm not sure. Maybe it's just the big dog gobbling up the competition or EA expanding to other types of games and gamers? In my eyes, it's a shame for the sake of diversity though. EA would never take the risks Take Two has.
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Re:Very Generous (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Very Generous (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Very Generous (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Very Generous (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Very Generous (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Very Generous (Score:5, Informative)
- Bioshock
- Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
- Civilization IV
In fact, not only were Civ IV and Bioshock published by Take Two, they were developed by studios that are currently owned by Take Two (Firaxis and the creatively-named 2K Boston/2K Australia, formerly Irrational Games).Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Very Generous (Score:4, Interesting)
Take Two was really undervalued because on one round of poor selling titles, and various lawsuits. EA realized this. It would be irresponsible for them to bid more than they thought the company was worth. This offer is the same as the previous one. $26/share == $2billion.
The analysts (who may be full of crap, of course) all seem to be saying that they expect it to take $29 - $31/share to get a deal done. Will EA pony up another $500mil? If you ask me, people who like video games should hope not.
Parent
Jacked (Score:2)
doesn't ea have enough publishers? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's gotta hurt! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's gotta hurt! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait.....
Parent
cue the jokes (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Take Two Responds (Score:3, Funny)
Surrender. (Score:3, Funny)
An oldie but goodie (Score:2)
What's going on indeed... [slashdot.org]
Monopoly (Score:2, Interesting)
Fuck EA (Score:2)
As far as Wing Commander goes, to hell with the FMV. Sure, if you want to do video scenes, animate the 3D models but no more live action! The gameplay went to crap with live action. I want quality along the lines of Wing Commander 1 and 2. The flight models in those games were based more on WWI than the way Star Wars did it, cribbing from WWII. I don't care, it looked gorgeous and was a frickin' b
EA's motivation (Score:5, Insightful)
Therefore, buying Take-Two would rid EA of there sports-related competition and all them to price their games at whatever they want. EA is one record saying that this is their intention, and that GTA is just icing on the cake.
Nice timing (Score:4, Insightful)
As a company, Take Two is simply falling apart. They're being sued by shareholders [next-gen.biz] for not accepting EA's original $2 billion buy out offer, the company is constantly under attack by politicans, parent's groups and religious leaders and aside from the temporary stock price hike attributed to EA's lust for the firm, the company's shareholders are jumping ship and dumping stock [next-gen.biz] faster than you can say "GTA made me do it."
EA has foreseen the collapse of the Take Two and has decided it wants to salvage Grand Theft Auto -- not for any altruistic reason, but for the hundreds of millions of dollars each new game automatically earns. They may not be able to create an original football game, but EA certainly has the cash and the legal know-how to absorb Take Two.
Prediction: EA will own the firm by the release of GTA4.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
well... one of us will win
Re:EA Takeovers aren't as bad as you'd think. (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that the video game industry is like any other industry in that most companies exist solely for earning as much money as possible...but you know what? There are still some people that take pride in their work, and many of the folks that work under Take Two fall into that category. If they wanted to be owned by a big publisher like EA, they would have accepted the offer. They obviously don't want it, and EA is an even bigger asshole for trying to muscle their way in after they had the door slammed in their face.
As a person with high respect for those that create not just for profit but to make their creative vision a reality, I find EA's deal to be a slap in the face to gamers all over the world. EA has pissed off a LOT of people, and they seem to be content with adding to that number. Fuck EA, fuck their underhanded business practices, and lastly fuck you for supporting and defending them.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
EA is the grandfather of the MMO.