EA Launches 'Hostile' Bid for GTA Publisher

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."

Re:If this goes through..

[Joe The Dragon]

and games will be buggy as the coders will be working 80+ weeks.

I'm no big fan of Take-Two

[Pichu0102]

But still, I hope that EA doesn't take hold of them. EA's gaining way too much influence on gaming, and considering how they run things into the ground and churn out mediocre games on the backs of good games makes me worried that they'll grab as many companies as they can, and run them and their brands right into the ground.

Obligatory Penny Arcade. Different company, but I still feel it applies here.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05 [penny-arcade.com]

doesn't ea have enough publishers?

[OrochimaruVoldemort]

they own bioware and pandemic. now they want take-two? this is becoming a monopoly on game publishing. the only real competitor is activision, and they are flailing right now.

Re:EA Takeovers aren't as bad as you'd think.

[Pojut]

EA has already been acting like a bitch by buying out exclusive licensing deals with the NFL. They seem to be attempting to get their only remaining competition in the sports market out of the way by simply buying them.

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.

EA Crap coding

[phorm]

Indeed. Every time I think of EA's acquisitions, I think about my more recent experience with C&C 3. I actually bought about 3-6 months after the release, so there were already patches, but still tons of bugs. Netplay was particularly horrible.

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.

Re:Very Generous

[Tritoch]

Don't forget about Globalstar/2K Play. Carnival Games was a huge success on Wii (now coming to DS), and they have a number of properties like Dora the Explorer that are cheap to develop and sell well to the casual crowd. Games like that don't give TT any cred with hardcore gamers, but they're cheap and easy ways to make a lot of money. They should also integrate well with EA's own casual initiatives, which have only gained steam recently with EA's rebranding efforts and focus on the Wii and DS.

Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two

[whisper_jeff]

Why'd ya have to sell out Will?

I believe the technical answer is "truck loads of cash."

EA's motivation

[iamghetto]

EA's main motivation for this acquisition is to regain the old price point for their flag ship sports titles. Take-Two publishes basketball, basebeall & hockey games (and to a lesser degree football) games that are direct competitors to EA's flagship sport titles. However, Take-Two at times has priced these titles as low as $29.99 which causes EA to drive it's own prices down.

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.

Re:Very Generous

[NeutronCowboy]

Personally, I think EA has two reasons to acquire Take Two: Remove 2k Sports as competitor, and get GTA in the process. 2K Sports was a major thorn in EA's side, as it forced EA to reduce the price of its sports game to 19.99 for a little while. That's $40 per game in lost revenue. Not all games would have sold, but I can guarantee you that this was a serious hit to EA's bottom line. I'd even argue that this deal, contrary to the one that paid nearly $1B for Bioware and Pandemic, will have a positive ROI within a few years, based on nothing but GTA profits and lack of competition from 2K Sports.

Kids

[BigJClark]

Don't hate on EA for making decisions that increase the total value of its own company. Instead, pity the poor game programmers. Kids, I have friends who work for that disaster of a company, and I had my own chance at it. The office in Vancouver is decked out to the 9's, but you'd better be ready to sacrifice your soul to the devil. Don't even bother applying if you have a family.

Seriously, think of the programmers.

..and the AI guys, although, they don't really do any work :)

Re:If this goes through..

[superpulpsicle]

If EA was really generous they would not be doing this when the stockmarket is in the hell hole. They are obviously taking advantage of the economic situations. Here's a new EA slogan.

EA ---- play the market, not video games.

This is bad for consumers. They should be shutdown. I piss on anyone who spent any money buying their monopolistic football games.

Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two

[Durzel]

"The Sims" is a licence to print money as far as EA is concerned, it really is as simple as that.

You can't exactly blame them for milking the cash cow when it has such a huge following.

Women and Sims

[QuoteMstr]

Oddly enough, I've noticed that while my female friends couldn't care less about most games, they go absolutely crazy over The Sims. Perhaps this effect has something to do with that game's popularity.

Re:If this goes through..

[fatgraham]

You don't think the coders who currently write the GTA games work 80+ hours a week??

Nice timing

[ecavalli]

The offer is a clever move by EA, and if this particular offer isn't accepted, another one like it will be very soon.

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.