Bioware/Pandemic To Go Public 22
1up.com is reporting that the newly allied studios Bioware and Pandemic will become publicly traded businesses. From the article: "One analyst isn't confident the companies will have any success. How can you possibly fail with U2's Bono at your side? Albeit seemingly unthinkable, Wall Street analyst Michael Pachter isn't optimistic. 'They don't have any chance of success,' he said. 'There's not an appetite to segment the different links in the value chain.' Everyone involved, though, is slightly more cheery about the plan, believing it's an important step for developers to receive proper compensation. 'The talent is not getting anywhere what they should,' says Pandemic president Josh Resnick. 'We're the film industry in the 1920's.'"
Re:What are the benefits? (Score:5, Informative)
If is a good way for a company to raise money for growth. You might have a good solid business going, but if you had $10M in cash, you could grow the business by leaps and bounds. Going public is a way to raise that money.
Re:What are the benefits? (Score:3, Informative)
Additional Linkage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How the hell would that work? (Score:4, Informative)
First, when someone buys 'non-trivial' portions of your shares, they may actually own you. But if they don't, or even if they do, they don't depend on you at all for 'funding.'
With additional funding that comes from an IPO, you are betting that the games in your stable will be profitable enough to not sign your soul over to a publisher - you will negotiate terms more favorable to yourself by assuming more risk that the publisher would otherwise be assuming (in exchange for a much better return on the partnership).
It might also be something else - the cash is needed to get talent to be able to make that bet on your stable, or you want to become a publisher in your own right or fund an alternative publishing method (like Steam).
If a publisher did buy you out, that means you are really rich, which is the purpose of everything anyway, so mission accomplished.