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Businesses Entertainment Games

Digital Illusions Won't sell to EA 35

Posted by Zonk from the hell-no-they-won't-go dept.
KBV writes "Games Industry.biz reports that EA won't be able to buy Digital Illusions, the makers of Battlefield 1942. The reason is that 28% of the shareholders do not want to make DICE a part of EA, saying that they believe that the developer's performance and future prospects are strong enough to make remaining independent a more attractive option. In particular they cite the planned launch of Battlefield 2 on the PC and Battlefield: Modern Combat on current and next-gen consoles next year."
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Digital Illusions Won't sell to EA More

Digital Illusions Won't sell to EA

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  • First person shooters.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:19AM (#11103403) Journal
    Bah... So common and boring concept.
    Bring back your pinball series! :-D

  • How interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by petrus4 ( 213815 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:23AM (#11103458) Homepage Journal
    It would appear that there is at least one software company out there which doesn't want to get its employees and itself raped by the gaming industry's answer to The Blob.

    Congratulations, Digital Illusions. Now all we need to do is get any of EA's other potential acquisitions to make similarly courageous decisions, and we might one day be able to strangle the beast. At least I can dream.
    • YES! Now, if they got a deal from Activision, I would hope they took it, but EA can suck it. They close down so many of their buy-outs that its ridiculous.
      • With the NFL thing earlier this week, reading this news was a breath of fresh air. Nice to see a developer not whore themselves out. *cough*bungie*cough*.
        • How did Bungie whore themselves out? Because they got acquired by the company who makes the main platform they target with their games? Because they let a major corporation handle their business end so they could concentrate on making better games? Because they now have access to a wealth of QA and development resources that would potentially be unavailable to them?

          They sell millions of copies of their games, a fact that has more to do with the quality of the finished product than the company that owns th

          • "How did Bungie whore themselves out? Because they got acquired by the company who makes the main platform they target with their games?"

            No, because they changed the main platform for their games to the company that acquired them.

            Bungie did Mac games first and foremost. Minotaur and Pathways Into Darkness were Mac-only. Marathon was originally Mac-only, later ported to Windows. Myth was released for Mac and PC on the same day. And the world's first glimpse of Halo was a demo run live on a Mac, shown at [bungie.org]

    • Well, at the very least, there's still one company out there whose shareholders realize that bad employee treatment is bad for business. Not to say that Digital Illusions if devoid of altruism, but I suspect that the bad press surrounding EA has raised concerns about their bottom line and their reputation among their audience should they "sell out" to EA.

      Keep in mind that I don't really agree with that viewpoint, and that I hate the concept that morality in business is a weakness. I just thappen to thin
      • I don't know about that, the previous owners (the Bonnier media group) voted yes to sell, and so did employees with a large number of shares. The share holders that vote no to sell simply want more money because they feel shortchanged by the suggested price. (in Swedish: di.se [www.di.se])
  • Most companies turn right around and have to give profits to investors and producers, so the company worth is not that high, and even if they sold, the money would go to the investors. I do not know Dice's situation, though. Companies like Bullfrog and Origin lasted a long time because they spanned multiple genres. Meanwhile Dice is just primarily one series as far I know. If they owner of Dice were able to keep the profits from selling, then selling might be the best decision for him/her/them. Take th
    • You are forgetting that in addition to their pinball games DI has also developed a number of rally games (Motorhead, rallisport challenge series, midtown madness 3) and some sort of horse-game series and a military sim (battlefield or something). They also made Shrek 1, let's not forget that!

  • Great. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <`vasqzr' `at' `netscape.net'> on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:45AM (#11103757)
    However, two groups of shareholders have announced their opposition to the deal, and between them they represent around 28 per cent of the firm's stock - enough to prevent the acquisition from happening

    I wonder if that 28 percent is employee-owned stock, and they're taking into consideration the recent EA/Employee scandals.
    • EA just want to OWN the WWII genre. Afterwards, no one else can make WWII games with real guns and vehicles. I am telling you this now... just like I told people they were trying to own NFLPA a year ago.

  • I agree with DICE. Battlefield 2 looks like it's going to be an amazing game [ign.com], and I applaud them for not giving in to the M$ of gaming, Electronic Arts...
    • wouldn't the MS of gaming being... umm.. MS? I mean, they did start a console and then start buying companies so they could get games on it. EA just looks like MS's son. or the bride of MS... whichever is funnier.
  • It's nice to see a game dev company that makes great games remain independent. Here's to hoping they remain that way...

  • Off topic, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WhatAmIDoingHere ( 742870 ) * <sexwithanimals@gmail.com> on Thursday December 16, 2004 @11:33AM (#11104495) Homepage
    While we're discussing EA, I was wondering why the little videos played before their games actually load are getting longer and longer.

    Battle For Middle Earth has the EA logo, THX, New Line Cinema, and a 5 minute video about the series. You can skip the 5 minute video, but not the minute of logo videos..

    Battlefield 1942/Vietnam is the same, you can't skip the "EA GAMES" logo.

    We don't care who made the game, we want to PLAY the fricking thing.

    Is anybody else noticing that these videos are getting longer and longer?
    • There's a command line option to skip the opening videos for BattleField 1942, and I assume the same for Vietnam.

      Add -restart 1 to the shortcut to start the game and you're set.

      • Alright, you can get around it with a command line option, but why are the intro videos so fricking long and getting longer with every game that comes out?

        Need For Speed Underground 2 has the EA GAMES video, one about how racing is dangerous and how you should only do it in the game, and a bunch of other crap.

        What's next? "For a better gaming experiance, drink Mountain Dew brand soda while eating Cheetos brand puffed corn snacks! Pick them up at your local 7-11 today!"
        • WipeOut 2097: "improve recation time Red Bull"
        • It's the same with movies. Everyone wants their brand name out there, and honestly, I totally understand that.

          While I agree that in a perfect world, it would be nice not to have any of those brand screens, it's totally normal for companies to what to put their brands out there.

          If you really want to complain about something, then complain about level load times. Did you notice how long it takes to load a map on battlefield vietnam? Forget maxed spec computers. If you load a map on a normal to fast PC (when
          • Actually, with Battle For Middle Earth and NFSU2 the videos show, and after that there is another screen that has the game title and "Now Loading"

            It's not saving time ever.

            And I already PAID $50 for my god damned game, why do I have to see a video with a creepy kid's voice telling me to challenge things?!
    • Most of the videos can be removed by "zeroizing" the .bik files. That was an old trick back in the day when game releases came ripped, and in 1.44MB chunks. BF1942 and BFV videos could be bypasses with the /restart switch IIRC.
      • You're missing the point.

        I know you can skip them by doing some trickery and changing files around, but WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO?

        I purchased this game for $54.95 so I could PLAY it. I don't want to sit through 5 minutes of video every time the damn thing crashes or I have to exit to do something.
  • Cool, I didn't even know that Digital Illusions were still around. I remember them back from the golden age of computing when the Amiga was at its peak. Does anyone else remember Pinball Dreams?
    • Pinball Dreams is definitely the "dream" of "pinball" in the universe. Go Amiga!!!
    • Yeah I got a shock when I heard that DICE made BF1942, what great game it was c/t just about every other WW2 shooter and then realised it was actually Digital Illusions Computer Entertainment or something; a very pleasant surprise. I still have the Dream/Fantasies and Illusions around somewhere on A500 disks, great games indeed and would be perfect for the Nintendo DS.

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