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Businesses Entertainment Games

Rupert Murdoch Considers Entry to Gaming Industry 47

Posted by Zonk from the right-wing-games-to-follow dept.
GamesIndustry.biz reports that News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is considering acquiring a game publisher. He's apparently "kicking the tires" on everything up to and including EA. From the article: "He highlighted Activision as one games publisher which is being considered for purchase. The Californian company, which is one of the biggest publishers in the world, has a market capitalisation of under $3 billion, compared to around $19 billion for Electronic Arts." It's sobering to consider that as big as EA is within the gaming industry it is small fry compared to the big fish in other sectors.
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Rupert Murdoch Considers Entry to Gaming Industry More

Rupert Murdoch Considers Entry to Gaming Industry

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  • I doubt he could possibly make EA any worse.

  • I can't wait... (Score:3, Funny)

    by nekoniku ( 183821 ) <justicek&infosource,info> on Thursday January 13, 2005 @03:42PM (#11351595) Homepage
    ...for EA to release Fox News Presents Virtual Bill O'Reilly including a coupon for a free box of falafel mix.

  • Here it comes... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 )
    ...the inevitable Vast Right Wing Conspiracy posts; "Murdoch just wants to turn gaming right like he turned the news right", or something along those lines. Someone will find some reason to complain, and toss in both Fox News and Bill O'Reilly's name into this somehow.

    More likely, it's that Fox has such a vast entertainment holdings that Murdoch simply wants to capitalize on them through the game market. The potential is vast if he does so. Everything from the Predator and Alien franchises, to perhaps a GT
    • Too late.. 03:42 PM January 13th, 2005. [slashdot.org]

      Your post: 03:43 PM January 13th, 2005

    • The concept of a right-wing game is an interesting one. Provide examples? I'd say that America's Army is pretty conservative.
      • Depends what you call a conservative game. There are all kinds of conservatives out there, and there might be some untapped market just waiting.

        But the safest bet is probably turn out games the way the industry does now, by just making the next shooter or football game. It would be interesting to see if someone could come up with some unique gameplay ideas, but I'm not sure political philosophy will make for big sales.

        Even saying America's Army is conservative is probably debatable, since that made the to
      • I find desert combat to be very conservative.

        There is a definate distinction between good guys and bad guys (even if you can play the bad guys).

        Not knocking it, just stating my impression.

        Urban Terror for example has no distinction.

        Also the "good guys" seam to have the advantage in Desert Combat (at least when it is me vs computer, I suck too much for online).

        I can easily win as Coalition, and barly as Opfor.

        I would prefer the game to not call the Good Guys coaltion, even NATO v OpFor (seperating it f
    • Nothing is "just a business opportunity." You're missing several key factors of human behavior here. People with that much influence/power/money have other things in mind when they buy companies like that. No, it's about power, greed, and the knowledge that what you want the world to become will be alot more likely if you control more of it.
    • Don't forget that Fox is the least conservative network on TV, with disgusting shit like "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" Murdoch doesn't let things like "morals" and "aversion to hypocritical behavior" get in the way of making money.

      Rob

  • It worked for AOL/Time Warner (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mr.Dippy ( 613292 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @03:48PM (#11351665)
    Remember when AOL and Time Warner got together and people were like "crap dude, they have the content and the means to give it to people they are going to make billions!" Last time I heard AOL just went through another round of layoffs and Time Warner dropped the AOl name. Same thing is very possible if a Media giant wants to take over a succesful game company.
    • The problem in that case was that, while AOL was initially very successful, it failed to account for changes in the ISP marketplace (namely, that people don't want to pay for ad-ridden, content-limited dialup when their cable or telephone company offers no-strings-attached broadband for a similar price).

      As long as News Corp picks a company that already has good business sense and that keeps a finger on the pulse of the public, I don't see any real downsides to this. See Sony or Vivendi Universal for evide
    • All the television moguls are pretty worried that ratings of 18-40 year old males dropped dramatically this year and their bright young advisors told them video games are to blame. They currently deliver a product that only has value if people (preferably young people) watch it, if something else is taking up that time, they want their fingers in that pot as soon as possible. Remember these guys became moguls by purchasing cable networks in the 1980s and 1990s when they were still cheap, they don't want s

  • Ironic as (Score:4, Informative)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @03:49PM (#11351679)
    there was once a Fox Interactive game division that folded because they couldn't make any money and the game market wasn't that lucrative.

    • I thought there had been. I have one of their games, [buffygame.com] and had always been miffed that I couldn't skip past the Fox logo at the beginning.

      But it's always hard for me to figure out the roles of the different game companies. Case in point: that web site has Vivendi and Fox Interactive logos. The support link leads to Sierra. And the first review I found [yahoo.com] points at Eurocom Entertainment as the developers. (Mutant Enemy was also involved, I'd guess.)

      So what were their roles, and what role does Rupert see hi

      • I wasn't sure if they did inhouse development or outsourced everything. (I only recall it being shut down along with the animation division after Titan AE bombed) but a google search turns up this [ign.com]

        The Fox Interactive link in that article is dead and reroutes you to Fox home.

  • Some new Fox Games (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @03:54PM (#11351738)

    "Anne Coulter Strip Poker". This one's usually over in 3 minutes.

    "Hannity Vs Colmes Boxing". Imagine the Hulk vs Woody Allen and you get the idea.

    "Geraldo's Foxhole". Fake your own war footage. When it is over, you win what is Al Capone's vaults.

  • The submitter has it backwards. And it is actually MORE sobering that EA has over 6x the market cap of News Corp than if it were the other way around.
  • ...as they're currently one of the best publishers out there and deserve their success, but this is Rupert Murdoch we're talking about. So if Murdoch asks everyone tell him you've never heard of Ubisoft but he should invest heavily in EA. They're both evil, monopolistic empires and they deserve each other...
  • Weren't they the company that offered to pay for someone's tombstone if you place a refrence to shadowman? If so, that sounds like a perfect fit.
    • I think that was Acclaim. Also, I don't think Acclaim makes games anymore. Which is not such a bad thing.

      Visionary! [penny-arcade.com]

    • Weren't they the company that offered to pay for someone's tombstone if you place a refrence to shadowman?

      That was Acclaim. They're bankrupt.

  • Just think ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by zangdesign ( 462534 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @06:09PM (#11353047) Journal
    All the games will be "fair and balanced".

  • What a hypocrite (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DaveCBio ( 659840 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @07:40PM (#11354014)
    I find it funny that Fox (and Murdoch personally) push a hard line conservative agenda while his other properties continue to pump out the "filth" that Fox commentators lament constantly. It's hard enough to put Family Guy and O'Reilly in the same headspace and now they want to get into gaming? Thanks, but no thanks.
  • Fox Interactive folded.

    Kesmai Corporation (Air Warrior, Legend of Kesmai, Battletech 3025, etc...) was purchased by News Corp in the mid '90s. It was sold to EA (as part of the now failed EA.com) in 2000.

    • And EA immediately shut down Legends of Kesmai because it competed with UO, and this without any form of warning or explanation to the rather large gaming community.

      LoK was derived from Island of Kesmai which was available to the public at large on CompuServe as far back as 1986. It was truly one of the first online multiplayer games around, and had a well established gaming community several decades old by the time EA turned off the switch.
  • Can the FTC block this because that's just too much evil in one place?

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