EA Launches 'Hostile' Bid for GTA Publisher 171
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."
If this goes through.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:If this goes through.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Are you serious? Go buy an EA game and compare it to somethign you can buy from Valve or Insomniac or Naughty Dog or Polyphony or Nintendo.
EA occasionally comes out with something special, but generally it's repetitive and it's low quality and it's buggy. It's a well deserved reputation, not an isolated problem of yesteryear.
EA = minimal effort enterprise company. They will only put in as much effort as they absolutely have to to get sales before the next iteration. Game making is not an artfo
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Yeah, except with EA in control, don't expect the same GTA edginess. More accurately - queue the nerfing of Rockstar Games.
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Re:If this goes through.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Remember when it use to be about family, apple pie, and fireworks and shit? Now it's all about the Benjamins.
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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.
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Remember when it use to be about family, apple pie, and fireworks and shit? Now it's all about the Benjamins.
Nah you got it wrong, Bro ... it's about gettin the paper NOW, instead of waitin around to *get paid*. :D
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Having a controlling interest over Rockstar might prevent such events happening in the future.
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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?
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.
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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
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LOL! I thought this was true too, but then I looked it up and Firaxis (maker of recent Civ stuff) is owned by none other than Take2
http://bigblog.com/computer_games/sid-meier-gives-nod-to-ea-tak [bigblog.com]
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OTOH my newest gaming capable (read: has a dedicated graphics card) machine is just over 3 years old now (though the graphics card is newer, the machine wasn't initially bought for gaming) and was pretty low spec at the time so this may not be such an issue on modern hardware.
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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.
Re:I'm no big fan of Take-Two (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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The Sims made a ton of money. So what? EA is an enterprise company totally devoted to profit and not really interested in the craft of gamemaking. The repeated responses to this criticism pointing out that the game made a lot of money is really, really stupid. no kidding it made money. It made money by
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The Sims is the far and away the best-selling PC game franchise in history. Every year since "The Sims" was released in 2000, a Sims product (sometimes more than one!) has held a top 5 spot in PC sales, and according to Wikipedia it's sold more than 70 million units as of January 2007.
Now I'm not saying it's the best game in world, but it's certainly a success.
If sales is your sole metric of software success then Windows is far and away the best operating system ever ;)
Being serious though, I won't deny that the Sims has been a financial success for EA. I just don't see the appeal in it though. To each their own I suppose.... I look back on memories of Sim City 2000 fondly -- the few times I played 'The Sims' I can't recall anything more then tedious boredom, broken up by occasional amusing moments of figuring out ways to murder the Sims (swimming pools
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You can't exactly blame them for milking the cash cow when it has such a huge following.
Women and Sims (Score:5, Insightful)
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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
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But the bottom line we all have to remember here is that EA is a company that makes mass-market games. That's what they do. They make mass-market games and frankly they're not terrible at it.
And /.: Remember, EA makes games for the mass audience. That may or may not cater directly to you, but it doesn't mean EA sucks. It just means they make games that aren't catered to you.
I never claimed they sucked because they make "mass market" games. In fact I don't think I ever came out and said that they sucked in my original post. Personally, I do think they suck but that has more to do with their labor practices then with the quality (or lack thereof) of their product.
In fact, your "mass market game" term is somewhat ironic -- the first image that popped into my head when I read that was Wally World, which is actually a pretty decent analogy for EA, IMHO. Mass marketed crap
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Sounds like you've basically summarized a lot of the reasons why they do suck ;)
Totally.
/., Kotaku, EvilAvatar...
Very simply, EA overworks their staff. They take advantage of passionate, talented indviduals who want their work to shine and have every ability to do just that... if they had more time.
In the same breath, I don't think it's wise to just say, "EA sucks" and dismiss them. I replied to your post in particular, but in my head I'm replying to a bunch of anti-EA sentiments I find all over
Maybe my point is: EA sucks, but not for the reasons most people cite.
And they're in po
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http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/15 [penny-arcade.com]
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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.
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)
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Re:Very Generous (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
Hmmm, I remember reading that EA had won the rights to all of the NFL sports teams, player names, logos, and other trademarks and that they had paid other leagues for the same privileges by outbidding their competitors (i.e. 2K) for the same naming rights in baseball, hockey, and just about every other professional sports league of consequence. Now, would you rather play Madden 200x from EA with Madden voice overs, the real NFL team names, player names and statistics, venues, jerseys, etc OR would you rath
Re:Very Generous (Score:5, Informative)
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Nah, I don't think so. Bioshock was great and all, but I'd surprised if it sold anywhere near the volume of, say, GTA 3 across all platforms.
(I could be wrong.)
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Speaking of growth, will Nintendo even let a game like GTA on the wii?
I'd say the existence Scarface, The Godfather (GTA-like games, one of which goes overboard with verbal profanity), and Manhunt 2 (also by Rockstar--and far more disturbingly violent than any GTA) on the Wii make the answer to your question obvious.
The question, then, is simply whether Rockstar wants to make a GTA game for the Wii, and the answer is apparently "no".
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The Godfather: Blackhand Edition? Made by EA by the way... and arguably one of the most fun games on the Wii.
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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.
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Take spyro for example, not really my sort of game but my brother loved the three titles by the original developers.
Then insomniac games moved on (to create ratchet and clank, another great series at least for the first three games I haven't played gladiator, size matters and tolls of destruction yet) and whoevever owned the rights to the series got some other developers to create "enter the dragonfly". This games fe
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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)
Oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait.....
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Grand Theft Pony & Grand Theft Barbie.
Got to mix and match those licenses and franchise.
cue the jokes (Score:4, Funny)
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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
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Someday I am going to find the person responsible for the death of "Darklands" and I am going to kick them in the balls. Hard. Repeatedly. For a long time.
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The Syndicate expansion, American Revolt, that was just evil. It's the video game equivalent of End of Evangelion. I have no idea what the fans did to piss those devs off!
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And air strikes, and I think it might have satellite bombardment too. American Revolt was brutal, it required a real mastery of the game. Syndicate Wars was too good, but not quite the original. They focused more on the story which was a nice twist, but it felt like you lost some of the free form, do whatever you want control that the original had.
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.
Kids (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Electronic Arts (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
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well... one of us will win
EA: The MS of games. (Score:2)
1. Acknowledge you can't innovate.
2. Buy company that innovates.
3. Charge a heck load of money for prior innovation.
4. Company stops innovating.
5. Repeat.
Oh fucking great! (Score:2)
1: EA buys
2: EA institutes a new work model
3: Shit falls INCREDIBLY far behind
4: EA shepherds it along at the pace of a stunned snail, making promises left and right.
5: Shit falls IMPOSSIBLY far behind (to the point where there's NEGATIVE development on a project)
6: EA plays major catchup and gets the product into a semi-usable beta which it'll release
7: EA finally just closes the project down, stating that it can no longer work on it.
This has been EA's pattern for EVERYTHING
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.
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Blame the NFL for that, they are the ones that wanted the exclusive deal. EA had no recourse but to get it. (Madden is a cash cow for them, they wouldn't give the up willingly)
I can almost guarantee that if EA buys TT, most of the development staff is going to quit, and reform elsewhere. That's how it done in the gaming industry.
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EA is the grandfather of the MMO.
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Re:After GTAIV is released Take Two will be worthl (Score:2)
Instead of GTA IV, it'll be GTA 2008, 2009, 2010...
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I love that show.