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."
Word!!! Westwood studios being the prime example of a game studio run into the ground. And Battlefield 2 is like a supermodel dressed in a paper bag. I just love the ten minutes it takes to get into a BF2 server.
Or Maxis. The SimCity 4 Rush Hour expansion had a stupid thing where you could unlock buildings by doing "U-Drive it" missions or whatever, and now they've made some shitty "sim city societies" game that's not about building up and cities any more, and EA's to blame. Fucking assholes.
Maxis may have gotten decapitated, but EA is still giving Will Wright their full support. We'll see the fruits of their labor when Spore finally comes out later this year.
And the real test to whether or not EA is going to stop screwing up their acquisitions [wired.com] will be the fate of Pandemic/BioWare. The jury's still out on that one.
Not to mention that SimCity 4 was basically unplayable without the expansion. You just didn't have the road types needed to handle traffic in high-density cities. It just reeked of your typical EA garbage where they get the game only partially done, sell it, then sell the finished product as an expansion. I won't be buying societies.
don't we all want more sequels after a sequel to a sequel which used to be an original game 10 years ago
The simple fact of the matter is, that's what consumers seem to actually want. Look at the most anticipated games of 2008 (according to some writer at Yahoo, that is):
Grand Theft Auto 4 Smash Bros. Brawl Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Metal Gear Solid 4 Halo Wars Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Fallout 3 Spore World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Final Fantasy XIII
Of that list, I see only one title based on a 100% new intellectual property: Spore. One guess who is publishing that title...
Well, those are actually good games. For every crappy rehash game I've gotten or tried out via torrent, I've played at least ONE somewhat abysmal original, or a game you've never heard of. It's not that 90% of sequels suck, it's that 90% of all games suck.
Here is my obligatory list of games that still get played, and most of them are NOT new at all, sequel or otherwise:
Mario Kart 64 (still the best) Mortal Kombat 4 (Great in Emulation), easy controls Civilization II (still much funner than civ 4) Urban Terror (this has replaced all other FPS games except:) Golden Eye 64 (people are ecstatic the second they see it on the big screen in high res). Super Mario World & All-Stars (SNES) Super Mario 64 Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Flatout 2 (we like to hurl bodies through fire) Ocarina of Time (I got nieces and nephews that LOVE it, it's new to them!) Tetris (SNES version) Dr Mario (N64 version) Bust a Move (SNES version) Quake 2 Evolved (Sometimes I just put it on because it's pretty) Smash Brothers (I only have the n64 version, they seem to like it) Super Metroid Lego Star Wars (for the littlest guys)
I honestly can't think of another game that gets played around here. I had Stepmania set up at one point, but nobody was that into it long term.
I mean, when you zoom out a couple of decades plenty of GOOD games get completely left out of the mix. Of course, I will be first in line for the new Grand Theft Auto, though....
I recommend the now hard to find Mupen++ with the Rice Video plugin 6.1.0.0 and the high res textures off of emutalk.net. There is also a high res plugin that works even better called glide ++ or something like that. If you need further assistance, you can email me: rhy (that little a with the circle) leperkhanz (dot) com
There are certainly others, but those are the names of game designers that, in the past, I've purchased, or at least taken a closer look at new games because their name was attached to it. I've seen interviews with these guys packaged in bonus CDs with the games and on game news sites, I see videos of them giving
See, this is where people are wrong. No one will ever get tired of sports games any faster than people get tired of watching sporting events. Its really that simple. People have been saying that they would get tired of the sport games for the past 5 years or so, but it hasn't happened yet.
Everyone's focused on GTA. How is everyone overlooking the fact that TT owns Visual Concepts - ie, the 2K Sports franchises? They would eliminate the only real competition they have in that arena, and Madden will continue to be the "best" football game out there.
Madden has been the only football game out there since they purchased the exclusive license from the NFL.
All-Pro Football 2k8 was released last year. I myself don't consider on par with Madden, since it lacks a franchise mode (even if they are all made up teams, I don't care), but give enough time I think it would be pretty good.
Given the fact that in the last few months Take Two has been investigated by the SEC, ousted most of it's executives, laid off some of it's staff and has a stock value that is still 1/2 what it was in 2005, I don't think they need EA to screw themselves up.
You go back far enough, and you realize they also ate themselves. Remember when Electronic Arts meant Pinball Construction Set? Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Sim? M.U.L.E.? Archon? The creativity in Electronic Arts was once nothing short of amazing.
You're right. The irony is that EA is nowadays in many ways the antithesis of what it started out as. Rather than a seller of endless sequels created by anonymous slave-driven peons, it used to be a well-regarded publisher of generally high-quality games, with the authors even being given named credit on the front of the packaging.
I'm sure I read somewhere that the turning point was sometime around the start of the 90s when they shifted their focus onto games for the 16-bit consoles. Wasn't that also the
That's what I thought, way back when all these buyouts and mergers started happening in the 90's. Guess what? The big commercial entities (EA, Sierra, Ubisoft, etc) keep making "sequels" and innovators keep appearing with new stuff that sells well (before getting bought out before version 3, etc).
I doubt very much we'll only every have the One Big Gaming company - games would suck so much people would eventually stop buying them.
Ok, but how does this take into the account the every increasing cost to make big games, isn't that creating an ever increasing barrier of entrance? Sure, creating a concept like Tetris doesn't cost much, but on the whole if I draw a graph of the average cost associated with making games over the last 10 years, it has been increasing because of hardware possibilities and such. The most innovative time was when games could be made by a single freak in the attic, but just like in the 90ties when you could not
I doubt very much we'll only every have the One Big Gaming company - games would suck so much people would eventually stop buying them.
I was too busy playing games back then, and less busy thinking about them--besides that I was just a kid--but didn't something very much like that actually already happen once sometime in the 80s or 90s?
The difference, now, is that video games are breaking into the "real world" and are becoming akin to movies and television. They'll suck, sure, but people won't stop b
Many Take Two shareholders are suing the company for acting outside of the best interest of it's share holders. Other shareholders have resorted to robbing Take Two employees' cars and using them to pick up hookers before taking their money and "disposing" of them.
Given Hillary Clinton's [senate.gov] ongoing fight to convince America that she's better at parenting our kids than we are, these sorts of buyouts may wind up being poor judgment calls should she somehow get elected...
I really hope Take Two resists this, or GTA 4 will be their last good game for sure. I really don't want that, and I think many agree with me, because that game is just so freaking good!
oh please.. it takes them years to do a sequel, it just means GTA will have expansion packs and stuff packs. You'll be able to buy expansion packs that add new areas and missions to drive around in, and stuff packs will add new outfits, cars, and the guns will have new coloured triggers.
Horse and Buggy, hmm, what about a grand theft auto (I know auto doesn't make sense here anymore), set in old western times? Riding with a gang of thieves to take down a stage coach full of gold on fast horses actually sounds pretty fun. The entire skill of quick shooting could be pretty interesting when paired with today's twichy mousers. The wild west in a video game?
All of the old movies could be brought in. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The unforgiven. Sounds awesome.
Your point about EA making too many sequels would be a lot more biting if you didn't have to start at 5 because the current owners have ALREADY MADE FOUR OF THEM.
I read another article where an EA bigwig was dismayed by EA's consistently low ratings at metacritic and other sites.
Seems like a transparent attempt to eliminate competition with their crappy sports games.
It infects healthy cells, multiplies like crazy, introduces all kinds of horrible mutations then eventually moves on, leaving dead tissue in its wake. I think in biology it's called that Cancer.
Take-Two's Board of Directors has thoroughly reviewed EA's unsolicited proposal with the assistance of its independent financial and legal advisors and concluded that the proposal is inadequate in multiple respects and not in the best interests of Take-Two's stockholders.
..."politely?" Okay, they may have used polite and diplomatic language, but Take Two told EA to f*ck right the f*ck off, and cram a few sharp pointy sticks in various orifices and organs in the process. Their response goes so far as to call the EA offer irresponsible and (by inference) insulting.
Finally George W. Bush is unlocked as an American leader, and the Fox News World Wonder is available, after it is built you can declare war on any nation with a Weapons of Mass Destruction claim even if they don't have any. It also allows you to remain in power even if your people find out the nation had no WMDs and it is draining your economy as well.
Special units, Dick Cheney unit to form Haliburton corporation to get no-bid oil contracts on any nation you invade. Colin Powell unit to help ease opposition to the war with faked evidence for it. Condeliza Rice unit to get other civilizations to side with you on the war. Bill O'Reilly unit to keep your population happy even if they oppose the war.
No; in the UK, the US definition of billion (10^9) has taken over and is now the overwhelmingly accepted standard for all uses. I can't recall the last time I heard the old (10^12) definition used here- except in a discussion like this- and I'm sure I read that it's officially considered obsolete somewhere.
How many A material games did you see lately that didn't come out of big studios? Making a game today (and I don't mean some Flash-app or ringtone game) is a quite pricy matter. The days when a small team of enthusiasts could slap together a game in their spare time that makes it into the bestseller lists are over. Sure, making a game has become easier than ever. You don't even have to know a lot about the math behind 3D graphics to create something that looks decent. But making it great (and thus sellable f
Oh God no.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh God no.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Oh God no.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Oh God no.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maxis may have gotten decapitated, but EA is still giving Will Wright their full support. We'll see the fruits of their labor when Spore finally comes out later this year.
And the real test to whether or not EA is going to stop screwing up their acquisitions [wired.com] will be the fate of Pandemic/BioWare. The jury's still out on that one.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Rush hour had new road types and the intensely useful commute graphs. So it wasn't all bad.
Societies is horrible though.
Re:Oh God no.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
You say that, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/10-most-anticipated-games-of-2008/1177969 [yahoo.com]
Grand Theft Auto 4
Smash Bros. Brawl
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
Metal Gear Solid 4
Halo Wars
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Fallout 3
Spore
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Final Fantasy XIII
Of that list, I see only one title based on a 100% new intellectual property: Spore. One guess who is publishing that title...
Irony?
Parent
Re:You say that, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is my obligatory list of games that still get played, and most of them are NOT new at all, sequel or otherwise:
Mario Kart 64 (still the best)
Mortal Kombat 4 (Great in Emulation), easy controls
Civilization II (still much funner than civ 4)
Urban Terror (this has replaced all other FPS games except:)
Golden Eye 64 (people are ecstatic the second they see it on the big screen in high res).
Super Mario World & All-Stars (SNES)
Super Mario 64
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Flatout 2 (we like to hurl bodies through fire)
Ocarina of Time (I got nieces and nephews that LOVE it, it's new to them!)
Tetris (SNES version)
Dr Mario (N64 version)
Bust a Move (SNES version)
Quake 2 Evolved (Sometimes I just put it on because it's pretty)
Smash Brothers (I only have the n64 version, they seem to like it)
Super Metroid
Lego Star Wars (for the littlest guys)
I honestly can't think of another game that gets played around here. I had Stepmania set up at one point, but nobody was that into it long term.
I mean, when you zoom out a couple of decades plenty of GOOD games get completely left out of the mix. Of course, I will be first in line for the new Grand Theft Auto, though....
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are certainly others, but those are the names of game designers that, in the past, I've purchased, or at least taken a closer look at new games because their name was attached to it. I've seen interviews with these guys packaged in bonus CDs with the games and on game news sites, I see videos of them giving
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh God no.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(ie, the only football game out there)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, you ment American football. Gotcha.... As far as I'm concerned, all video games for that sport went downhill after Tecmo Superbowl
Re: (Score:2)
All-Pro Football 2k8 was released last year. I myself don't consider on par with Madden, since it lacks a franchise mode (even if they are all made up teams, I don't care), but give enough time I think it would be pretty good.
Re:Oh God no.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Try the Preview button next time - works better than the stop button.
Re:Oh God no.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure I read somewhere that the turning point was sometime around the start of the 90s when they shifted their focus onto games for the 16-bit consoles. Wasn't that also the
I guess EA will get frustrated... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I guess EA will get frustrated... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I guess EA will get frustrated... (Score:4, Funny)
Whoever loses, we win.
Parent
[Whispers] Buy Everything! (Score:2)
Re:[Whispers] Buy Everything! (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt very much we'll only every have the One Big Gaming company - games would suck so much people would eventually stop buying them.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The big gaming crash of the 80/90s? (Score:2)
I was too busy playing games back then, and less busy thinking about them--besides that I was just a kid--but didn't something very much like that actually already happen once sometime in the 80s or 90s?
The difference, now, is that video games are breaking into the "real world" and are becoming akin to movies and television. They'll suck, sure, but people won't stop b
and of course, (Score:5, Funny)
In Related News (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, did I just invoke Godwin's law ? I double suck today.
Take Two ~~ Yahoo? (Score:5, Interesting)
Aw... (Score:5, Funny)
All Points Bulletin (Score:2, Interesting)
removing "the grind" [is] a top priority
Better headline (Score:5, Funny)
Politics and financial consequences. (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering what AE does to their franchies (Score:2)
get ready for ... (Score:5, Insightful)
GTA 6: Parental Approval!
GTA 7: Sunday Driver!
GTA 8: Horse and Buggy!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
All of the old movies could be brought in. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The unforgiven. Sounds awesome.
Re: (Score:2)
Phew (Score:2, Informative)
The lifecycle of the EA (Score:2)
REJECTED (Score:4, Informative)
Politely? (Score:2)
Civilization V: Grand Theft War (Score:5, Funny)
Special units, Dick Cheney unit to form Haliburton corporation to get no-bid oil contracts on any nation you invade. Colin Powell unit to help ease opposition to the war with faked evidence for it. Condeliza Rice unit to get other civilizations to side with you on the war. Bill O'Reilly unit to keep your population happy even if they oppose the war.
Borg (Score:2)
One of us! One of us! One of us!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, making a game has become easier than ever. You don't even have to know a lot about the math behind 3D graphics to create something that looks decent. But making it great (and thus sellable f