EA Trying to Buy Ubisoft Shares

jujubees writes "What is going on with Electronic Arts these days? This morning it was revealed that EA is trying to acquire 19.9% of the Ubisoft shares owned by Dutch investment company Talpa Beheer B.V. If approved by the US Antitrust department, the buyout would instantly make EA the biggest shareholder, ahead of the Guillemot brothers. Whether this is a hostile takeover attempt is not clear at this point, no financial terms were disclosed." An anonymous reader also wrote in to mention a GamePro Editorial about the company, regarding its past as an honorable games-maker and its current reputation.

Comments

Hostile

[dolo666]

EA Trying to Buy Ubisoft Shares... so that they can turn Ubisoft into EA. This can not be perceived as anything but a hostile takeover, and once again, EA is becoming the worst reputed games company of our day.

Re:Hostile

[DeathFlame]

I had a good long post about how open source is not for games.

But as I went along I convinced myself that I was wrong, and that open source can be better than the closed source model, even for games.

So I can only hope that one day the OSS gaming market does seize the day.

Re:Hostile

[harrkev]

Gaming is the one thing that, in my opinion, open-source cannot conquer.

How many hours per YEAR do you spend with your OS? How many hours with a word processor, web browser, or spreadsheet? The average geek needs all of those things. It is worth the effort to make those essential tools. And if a geek makes it, then he can use it. The last RPG that I played lasted all of 80 hours. I doubt that I will ever touch it again. I will just buy another one.

This is the reason that nobody can truly monopolize game creation: you only need ONE word processor, ONE web browser, and ONE operating system. But games have a high turnover rate. I would not be surprised to find people who buy more than one game a month.

So, let's assume that an awesome FOSS game came out. People would download, play, and conquer. Within two months, they are back at Best Buy looking for another game to play.

One more thing: If somebody make a game, they would likely not play it for fun, since they already know all of the quests, plot twists, etc. The only exception would be multi-player games where the challenge comes from beating other peple, instead of beating the game.

And don't forget that a word processor is a matter of programming. Making a game also involves: 2D art, 3D art, voice acting, music, and writing talent. No one person can possibly have ALL of the skills needed to make a modern game by themselves. Since you now have a lot more diverse skill mix, it becomes harder to recruit talent and to manage everything.

For all of these reaons, FOSS might be able to generate a respectable title or two, but it will NEVER replace commercial games.

Re:Hostile

[realdpk]

Part of why IE is stumbling is because it wasn't being actively developed (at least, not in a publicly seen way), while Mozilla was.

EA is still actively developing new games (even though they are mostly rehashes of the same old designs).

OSS could potentially come out with new game ideas and run with them, but I don't think they'll come out ahead until EA starts seriously stagnating (not even putting out games for months at a time).

Strong Moves

[Zinic]

Looks like EA trying to knock out competition the way every other company out there would. They see a threat and want to nullify it before it becomes a serious problem to their income ratings.

Re:EA disease is spreading

[Blue-Footed Boobie]

I wish I could mod you down.

To STOP supporting Ubi now is just stupid, and will hurt Ubi (who I feel make great games).

Stop buying from them if EA ever owns/buys Ubi.

Stroke, Stroke

[retinaburn]

Simple reasoning, EA just needs fresh rowers, and Ubisoft has proved to have some pretty good oarsmen. Avast ye scurvy dogs!

You know times are bad...

[FortKnox]

... when you are rooting for the Microsoft Gaming Companies to outdo the EA gaming companies profts.

Offtopic? WTF?

[Spy der Mann]

OK who was the moron who modded this offtopic? It's a COMPLETELY valid point. Meaning that EA is like this hungry corporate monster who wants to swallow the small fish.

Remember the tragedy of Yahoo buying geocities now known as "geoshitties" by its former users?

UBIsoft is an excellent small software company. When I play Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, I remember good ol' times of Epyx. New, original games, maybe with some flaws.

And then comes the walmart-mindset megacompany and wants to ruin it.

So please, MOD PARENT UP.

Gamepro Editorial

[mrseigen]

I don't think they really "get" the latest reasons everyone hates EA. They're buying out everyone in sight, burning out their coders, and casting them inside. They hire students out of college with ideals and goals in life, burn them out, and cast them aside as well.

This isn't about originality, how original can you make a fucking sports game anyway?

(Speedball and Mutant League * fans -- I love them too. They're not sports sims. Sorry)

The games industry is the movie industry

[Infonaut]

Expect a lot of this sort of hardball behavior to become the norm in the games industry, if it isn't already.

As we all now know, the games industry is huge - bigger than Hollywood. Well, look at how Hollywood studios have acted over the years, and recognize that the halcyon days of the games industry are gone. It's Big Business, and if you look at how games are marketed and distributed, it's a sophisticated moneymaking machine where creativity runs a distant second to pulling in big dough.

People complain about movies being derivative, formulaic, and obsessed with sequels. The movies have nothing on the games industry. It's becoming more and more risk-averse every day.

"source available" != Open Source != Free Software

[FreeUser]

Open Source is great for games. Many people get confused and think that because you have an open source game, people can get it for free. You don't have to use the GPL to be open source.

This is true.

If they would just include the source with your game, and allow you to edit it for your own purposes, but not redistribute it, it would still be open source, by definition.

I'd check the definition of open source again. Certainly this would not be software libre (free as in freedom software), and I believe restricting redistribution disqualifies a license from meeting the open source definition as well (though I haven't kept up on the open source folks current guidelines, so I could be wrong).

The GPL'ing of game engines on the other hand is a great idea.

I think you could achieve what you're suggesting by GPLing the game source (engine) and the game logic perhaps, but retaining all of your rights to the ARTWORK (which would arguably include not just sprites and sets, but also level maps, etc.). In this way you gain all of the advantages of free software with respect to debugging the gaming software, but retain a branded product you can sell. You could even release for free the first 25% of the game to hook folks a la Id (they did this with doom, quake et al very successfully).

Of course, you may find yourself competing with folks who make 3rd party knockoffs that run on your game engine and with your game logic ... that is a downside, although if your artwork and level design is superior, that may not be a big issue.

Certainly artwork is a labor intensive part of designing games (perhaps THE labor intensive part these days), and while a Creative Commons approach to artwork (and film, for that matter) is likely to emerge in the future, certainly in today's environment you could do something like the above quite successfully I suspect.

Re:Freeman

[zorg50]

I'm pretty sure they removed the CD check. Vivendi probably required it to begin with; I doubt it's Valve's fault.