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Ubisoft CEO Speaks out Against EA Move
Gamespot is reporting that Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has spoken out against EA's "hostile action". From the article: "Considering the industry practice of communicating informally about such decisions, we were disappointed, to say the very least, that EA chose not to inform us of their specific plans beforehand." Further, Voodoo Extreme is reporting that a financial report may suggest the French government is going to assist Ubisoft in staying out from under EA's thumb.
Due to very irritating interstitial advertisements, here is the text of the second article:
French Government To Protect Ubisoft From EA?
December 30, 2004 - An AFX Financial report suggests that the French government may take steps to protect Ubisoft from acquisition by EA, should they decide to expand their 19.9% ownership:
The heads of the studios fear that a purchase of Ubisoft by EA would lead to the disappearance of the last decision making centre in France for the video games industry, La Tribune added.
Ubisoft said last night it is not in talks 'at present' with EA about the US company's recent purchase of a stake. 'In light of recent news spread by the press, Ubisofts board of directors reiterates that, in the absence of information from Electronic Arts regarding its intentions, the latter's acquisition of 19.9 pct of the groups capital is unsolicited and currently considered as hostile,' the company said.
Les Echos newspaper reported yesterday that Ubisoft will gather together some of its largest shareholders next week in a bid to convince them not to throw their weight behind EA.
-- Andrew Burnes
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
UBI can speak out against it all they want, but what they really need to do is give their current shareholders more reasons to hold onto the stock. Maybe they should have spent more time polishing Ghost Recon 2...
Isn't government interference a violation of France's WTO agreement?
The CEO's should decide it the old fashioned way-- controllers at dawn! UBI Soft, as the target, gets to pick the game...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
"With Electronic Arts the new owner of almost 20 percent of Ubisoft, you might expect that company's leader to wobble a bit in the unexpected limelight."
Being French, I expected them to surrender...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
really if EA gets thier properties and puts out a deathrow 2 id probably quit saying EA games suck
Maybe EA and Oracle should get together and swap takeover recipes.
Some call me Howie Feltersnatch
The french recognize that they can't compete on a level field so they try to rig the game. You can't blame them for being inferior, only for being phony and claiming that they support free trade.
Why doesn't Ubisoft just send Sam Fisher to take care of EA for them? :)
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
France to EA: Piss off you American pig.
... assist the reader by saying what this hostile action is, why it's occurring, where (France?) and so forth. The summary, as it stands, seems written for people who are already in-the-know, which is a foolish assumption in the face a global internet.
... it's not just for journalists any more!
Who, what, where, when, why, and how
You are correct. Too bad it is not only the French who are phony.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2022849.stm
RTFA
... And it's much different in the States?
Hahahahahahahhahahahaha
Good laugh.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
And you're from the US, right? :-)
It takes one to know one, I presume.
France (and the rest of the EU) are already in violating of the WTO over the massive grants they've given, and are planning to give, Airbus. The US government says it's unfair, but they too have given (and will continue to give) massive grants to Boeing. I guess that complaint has got more to do with the fact that Airbus recently moved ahead of Boeing in number of aircraft being ordered, and the US is no longer the dominant player (IMO). Oddly enough, didn't the French also give a hand out to a server manufacturer a few weeks ago to keep them in business?
Go France!!!!!
EA must die!!
that linux. co. can't buy a % of MS stock....
actually - why would they want too?
now what if in turn - MS bought stock in RedHat of some other distro?
As opposed to EA's slave labour to remain competitive? Take your jingoism and shove it, it has no place here.
You bitch and moan about China's unfair trade practices and low labour costs, yet look the other way when EA does it?
...the similarities... the Borg and EA!
Even if you didn't know what was going on, it doesn't take too much brainpower to infer that EA is trying to take over Ubisoft...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Eh.. you don't get what a hostile acquisition is? It's not terribly complex, basically EA went under the table and acquired 20% of a competing shop's stock. Generally they will let them know what's going on before hand. The fact that they were hush about it is an indicication that they are attempting to acquire a 50.1% or greater stake in the company, thus gaining a controlling majority and initiating a "hostile takeover".
There's a bunch of nuances involved with the whole thing, but thats the "for dummies" version.
Naturally this is concerning to the precarious French government as they would lose their primary stake in the game industry to a US company.
WTO launches US steel tariff probe 3 June, 2002
27 November, 2004 US vows to end banned tariff rule
Whenever another country can produce something cheaper than Americunts, they whine and bitch and moan about these foreign companies "flooding the market" because shitbags like you think it's inconceivable that anybody could possibly be more productive than Americunts!
That's Citroen and Peugeot, you patriotic fool.
A blog like any other.
Borg football 3047 was a huge hit after they acquired all competing developers.
It seems that EA can't stay out of the news these days but most of it isn't pleasant news either. It will be interesting to see what EA does and where its going in the near future.
I agree, and I didn't have any problem understanding the submission, but the original poster is right, it is uunnecessarily confusing.
It wouldn't have taken much to clarify that the "hostile action" was the sudden purchase of 20% of Ubisoft's shares by EA.
I've often been frustrated by similar submission, so I sympathize.
iana EA Employee, but it seems to me that EA Stopped being about games a long time ago... it's your typical board of directors type shop it seems to me now, who so happen to see videogames as a method of getting rich. I'm sure the people working on "the floor" care very much about their products, but I get the impression that at the top they will dop whatever they can to get the highest Return on Investment, not "make the best game possible"... I don't get the impression that they have any idea how to make the best use of the franchises they have other then sports and Sims, and even that is questionable. K done ranting, back to work for me
Because Ubi knows that EA's got all the football players from Madden 2001, 2002, 2003, 20004, and 2005 backing them up.
Not a big fan of the Splinter Cell games?
Those are Ubisoft.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot speaks his mind on the EA deal
With Electronic Arts the new owner of almost 20 percent of Ubisoft, you might expect that company's leader to wobble a bit in the unexpected limelight. Yves Guillemot does anything but.
Just five days before Christmas, with many game industry staffers already on vacation, Electronic Arts dropped an explosive bit of news on the wires. In a short press release, it acknowledged having purchased an estimated $85-$100 million worth of Ubisoft shares.
The move--a surprise to the vast majority of industry observers--gave it a 19.9 percent ownership position in one of its most daunting competitors. Wedbush Morgan senior analyst Michael Pachter told GameSpot, "I think EA is interested in Ubisoft's development talent and in its Gameloft investment [in wireless games]."
But is that all? "I don't know if EA wants to take them out," Pachter said, "but given that Ubi has a pretty strong set of licenses and great development--with a more Euro-centric sales profile--it's a combination that makes sense from EA's perspective."
Pachter clearly assesed the stock acquisition as something less benign than how EA had earlier portrayed it. "EA is not in the business of making passive investments in public companies," Pachter concluded.
Regardless of its motives, the builders of famous franchises that include Madden and Medal of Honor now own a block of Ubisoft shares second in size only to the chunk owned by the company's founders, one of whom is its CEO and president, Yves Guillemot.
We spoke to Guillemot shortly after the transaction was announced.
GameSpot: Yves, to most observers, EA and Ubisoft are arch rivals who compete for market share, mind share, shelf space, and talent. It's hard to believe the two parties can work toward common goals. Assuming all regulatory issues are cleared, your board of directors will have to acknowledge EA's wishes as they might other shareholder's. How do you expect this marriage to get on?
Yves Guillemot: Although EA and Ubisoft are both leading game publishers, I wouldn't say we are arch rivals. All players in the industry compete for market share, shelf space, and talent, but as the past few months have shown, the market is growing, and the more outstanding titles that hit the shelves, the more the market grows. So getting great games out there is a common goal that all publishers share.
GS: So how do you read the move by Electronic Arts?
YG: I have stated on the record that I view this action on the part of EA as hostile.
GS: Do you see malevolence at its core?
YG: Until we have further information we cannot say what EA's goals might be.
GS: How does having EA as a shareholder affect the issue of disclosure, specifically company strategy?
YG: In terms of the company's confidential strategy, that information is not provided to any of our shareholders. This has always been our policy, and we have consistently shown ourselves worthy of the confidence of our shareholders.
GS: Are there remaining shares of the company that are vulnerable to acquisition by Electronic Arts, and if so, is Ubisoft management considering options if EA were to become a majority shareholder?
YG: Ubisoft is a publicly traded company, with 22.8 percent of its voting rights held by the company's founders. Of the remaining capital publicly held, 13 percent of voting rights are in the hands of financial institutions and 44.5 percent are in the hands of small shareholders. The management is studying all its options under several different scenarios.
GS: Given this twist in the company's timeline, what does the future hold for Ubisoft?
YG: For the immediate future, we are still looking forward to a record-breaking fourth quarter, with the release of several titles which you [in the press] also seem to be eagerly anticipating.
GS: What about the long-term outlook?
YG: When looking at the longer-term, our only concern is the
Sam Fisher will infiltrate Electronic Arts headquarters under the cover of darkness. After gathering intelligence related to the hostile takeover, he will go to the roof for extraction. Alarms or civilian deaths will result in mission failure.
Rolls-Royce, Audi and Mercedes all depend on French engineering. The suspension used in Rolls-Royces and top-of-the-range Audis and Mercs is a licence-built knockoff of the Citroen oleopneumatic system.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy wine with hairy armpits.
Which is why they're interested in acquiring a shop that already knows how to leverage genres other then sports and sims. Why learn it when you can buy someone who already knows?
Companies do that all the time. They recognize they don't have the expertise and experience in a given field, so they buy-out someone who does.
Eh.. you don't get what a hostile acquisition is...
The word "acquisition" doesn't even appear once in the summary. Thanks for the "for dummies" version; too bad that wasn't what was originally submitted!
Any public company can be bought out. Don't want to be bought out? Stay private. All's fair in love and war and business is the biggest war in the world.
Or is your grammar construction just a little off?
Just for clarification, you don't have to have a 50.1% or even a 50% stake to claim a takeover. Typically, anything in the 40% or greater range will give you controlling interest, as there usually isn't any one controlling interest with more.
There are quite a few companies out there who are run by a 30%(ish) controlling interest.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
FreedomWine and FreedomWomen? Sounds like the 60s all over again.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Hell, damn near everything interesting these days is either Sierra (Half Life 2, Evil Genius) or Ubisoft (Splinter Cell, Settlers, Prince of Persia, Myst). I can't remember the last good EA game I played since they borged Bullfrog.
Here's what I hear has been happening in France... Every now and then some non-French company wants to buy a French company. The French government immediately steps in and makes a second French company buy the first French company the foreign company was interested in thereby creating a much larger French company which is no longer small enough for the foreign company to buy. When a German pharmaceutical company (Germany has some of the largest in the world) wanted to buy a French one the French government got a separate French pharmaceutical company to buy it instead. The intended effect of all these forced mergers seems to be to get France back into competition with other countries.
If you don't believe me look into the history of France Telecom which purchased Wanadoo, Orange, and Equant (the last two were previously foreign owned but operated in France). The thing about the purchases of these is that France Telecom now owes a billion euros back to the government for illegal subsidies.
Another classic example of Little Man's Syndrome is Vivendi Universal.
Direct away from face when opening.
As opposed to USA's Microsoft Windows and extremely obese women? ;-)
Well, Ubisoft produced Beyond Good and Evil, which is excellent. On the other hand, they produced Pool of Radiance 2.
Man that's beautiful.
If I was a hillbilly I'd have a single tear running down my cheek right now.
Noob.
I've been a fan of the Madden football games for years.. I played the first one on my AT in CGA. Lately, there hasn't been much change to the games other than frilly add-ons like EA online. With their now exclusive contract with the NFL and this, I can easily say good riddance to a monopolistic company that doesn't seem to care anymore about making great games.
On the flip side, if Ubisoft is going to leave themselves open to a takeover, who are they to complain when it actually happens? I think this is underhanded by EA, but it's perfectly legal. Ubisoft may whine, but has no leg to stand on with regards to a formal complaint.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Also, Nissan is now in bed with Renault. Yes, it's true, the best japanese automaker :) is in bed with the french.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sam Fisher vs. Football players? My money is on Sam Fisher.
Nice try brother trucker!
Please play again!
In France, however, management has priority in the law. You might think that the shareholders control the company through a board of directors appointing the CEO and others in management, but the truth is under law the equity owners are extremely limited in making the kind of company-saving decisions that they can in the US. The result is an anemic economy.
This is a seperate issue from the French government offering to become specially involved, but is relevant to EA's ability to affect Ubisoft in the same way they would any other company in the US inwhich they owned 20% of the shares.
why would you think my country owes you a cent (netted, of course)? We don't, you guys owe us a lot of money due to lagging accounts payables (trade deficit), among other reasons ...
Burnout 3 rocks, the SSX series is good as far as snowboarding games go.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
you must be a fat fuck, grosse merde!
Sadly, EA more and more looks like the bullies in the Game industry. They behave like a monopoly, they are the largest and use all their weight to crush the competition, sell crapy products, exploit their staff and screw their customers.
Dude!!! French Fries are AWESOME!!!!!
lets add Concorde into that, which was a joint British/French project. How about the Arianne rockets?
those are women? someone fetch me a bucket.
Sam Fisher has the Fifth Freedom: The freedom to do whatever it takes to keep Ubisoft programmers from working 90 hours a week in an EA sweatshop.
There is a rumor that EA simply wants to get in on a new Ubisoft game. The premise of the game is that the player is the head of a French bank and collects fees from an Iraqi dictator who is supposed to be using the money in his account to pay for food and medical supplies for his people, but is really funneling it to terrorists and arms dealers.
You get bonus points for lobbying the UN to not sanction a war in Iraq so that you can keep collecting fees from the account.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041118-Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
If you don't want to lose control of your company, don't go public - it's really that simple.
Everyone likes to play by the rules as long as they're in their favor, but as soon as someone else gets the upper hand and threatens your (insert precious item here) the rules suddenly become unfair and need to be circumvented. Human nature I guess. Hooray for "free" markets though - greed really is the best motivation for human endeavors, right?
in Heaven, the police are British, the lovers are Italian, the cooks are French, the engineers are German, and it's all organized by the Swiss.
In Hell, the police are German, the lovers are Swiss, the cooks are British, the engineers are French, and it's all organized by the Italians.
Sorry something about french and engineering in the same concept just eludes me.
Yeah, you better send that green statue in NY harbor back to France, before it topples over.
France does not want to lose France based companies.
It is good that EU countries are now subject to the same buyout and then layoff trend that the USA went through in the 1980s.
The loss of companies that move out of France + the loss of jobs from buyout/layoffs will force France to actually support a pro-business environment instead of a entitlement burdened nanny state.
The euro has greatly facilitated free trade, free capital, and personal freedom.
And i don't want to buy girls with disgusting, baloon-like plastik tits and *g* and cars with to soft (==unsporty) suspension.
Ubi's also got the Rainbow Six team... And they've got guns.... lots of them.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
All I am saying is that the French government is not as altruistic as they would like people to believe. They are saying here that they are protecting the last bastion of gaming within France. So, I should believe that statement like I should believe that they did not want us to invade Iraq due to concerns about peace. Come on. They--and the Russians--were making money hand over fist off of this program without concern about the people of Iraq.
Certainly the republicans who have supported the war are enjoying the egg on France's face with this, but I do not make this point as a republican....because I am not a republican. I make this point because France is a bunch of socialist, cheese-eating, surrender-monkeys. Having the US get involved in war was okay by the French when their asses were getting brutalized by a dictator, but not okay when someone else is in that situation? Fine. I couldn't care less if the French like the US or not.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
er wait...
You do have another idea about how to acquire multi-million dollar, interest-free, unsecured cash loans right?
Actually, it is Halliburton. And yes, I do have some information on them:
You can probably look for that CEO job here: http://www.halliburton.com/careers/index.jsp
Here is what you will be in charge of: http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/07/w e_455_01.html
But, be warned, as the CEO of Halliburton, you have those pesky democrats spreading lies about you.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Wow!!! That looks like a quality pen. I wonder what the reserve is. I'm really suprised it has no bids. You should buy it!! Troll hata
Is this still true after BMW bought the rights to the Rolls name a few years back? I only read about that deal in passing; the details basically were that BMW got the name, VW bought all the assets, and BMW was looking up old Rolls Fan's to reverse engineer the cars into the 21st century. Just curious, that's all...
from ubisoft montreal. and not from france.
Once you go fat you never go back.
Fat chicks also give the best head, you know, cuz they have to.
"Being French, I expected them to surrender... "
...
...
This is the same Etats-Unians intel wich gave us the WMD of Irak
History goes like this : Nazi take Paris ( France Capital ) and change the governement by removing the elected president and Prime Minister ( they make them resign ) and declare the vice-premier, Henri-Philippe Petain the new French government and In 1940, aged 83, Petain agreed to head the Vichy government in occupied France. The real elected government of France actually never surrendered.
The only cowards of world war 2 where the United States "of america" who where too coward to join at the start and only joined once the victory whas assured. ( stealing the Tanks development and airplane development from the americans in the process).
Yes , the American helped the ally won world war 2 from end to finish
C ourageous
A mericans
N oble
A mericans
D efender of
A mericas
where not "of america" where it !
From: http://english.people.com.cn/200306/24/eng20030624 _118783.shtml
Mostly, their troops are glorified police officers. Their troops did not see anything like the action the US Special Forces saw in Afghanistan. In fact, most of their ground troops came into areas that had already been secured by the US.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Don't you mean Sphincter Cell...sorry recurring theme with me on the name of this game.
"Give me taste, give me funk, give me fury, gimme some more."
They actually don't even need 50.1%. According to the interview the next largest stake is held by the initial founders- including the CEO- and it is only ~22%. EA would only need 24% or so to have a majority.
I heard something interesting recently wrt. the softwood lumber issue. It seems that some Canadian lumberyards close to the border are doing good business selling houses to Americans. Apparently it's cheaper to buy the house in Canada because when the peices get shipped over the border, it is taxed as a house, rather than as softwood lumber.
the whole north american continent would be called Canada, which wouldnt be such a bad thing.
Can't we all just get along?
The Canadians wouldn't get so irritated by being mistaken for Americans.
Ya know, I read a bunch of articles, but that had the cleanest text. I could have quoted Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132832,00.html , but I figured people would accuse me of conservative bias.
Then, I thought about quoting the Sunday Times from the UK:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-12 91280,00.html but who knows who might own that.
I also thought about quoting a French source. http://www.investigateur.info/news/articles/articl e_2003_05_5_auchi.html, but I think I have made my feelings clear about the French.
Finally, I considered a source from Pittsburgh, http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/middlee astreports/s_273762.html, but was afriad I would be branded a Steelers fan.
Every article said pretty much the same thing. I am sure the TImes article was cobbled together from other places. I am familiar with the moonies and find them to be quite different. But, that does not change the fact that the article was factually correct according to numerous other sources. If that was the only source, I would not have used it.Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Sam Fisher vs. Football players? My money is on Sam Fisher.
But what if da football players have Ditka on der side?
I'm thinking Fisher 0, Ditka and football players...147.
Da Bears.
These are publishers, they are the ones who place unrealistic time constraints on development, foring people to work rediculous hours, and then own the game and make all the profits. They are the RIAA of games.
Dude. French engineers are the best in the world. They take on large projects like the Eiffel Tower, The Chunnel,the Millau Bridge and the TGV. They certainly aren't scared of nuclear power. I look foward to when they start building the ITER fusion reactor. Hopefully in France.
Didn't the French government that helped the US, get overthrown(revolution) and replaced with the current(surrender-at-all-costs) one? You do realize it's not just the US that thinks the French are a bunch of pussies, right? They're the joke of the world. Only Germany likes them, but it's more like they're kissing their ass out of shame for what they did to 'em.
Percentage of morons in the population:
US:95%
France:80%
How much does my country owe your cuntry? Whats that? America owes us money? ALOT of money?? unberievable.
Whatever and whoever the EA throws at us we can defeat. They have a weakness, you see.
When they go take a leak, you simply replace the bathroom door with a solid wall.
EA is known for grinding it's employees under, it might as well be cheese eaters rather than Americans. Just use'em and discard them. They are consumables, and it's not like they're going to fucking retaliate or something.
Their attitude seems to be "You'll play what we develop and like it!" They forget to add "No matter how inferior a product it is!"
I say fsck EA. Unfortunately I don't think they'll be suffering Acclaim's fate any time soon.
No sig for you!!
Craig Conway
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Hehe me too, that gonna be one vapor cloud thats welcome to see, as in no more French, one can only dream..
Ah yes. But they're extremely obese women with shaven armpits. I mean, if you're into that kind of thing.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
And that big Tour Eiffel thing; the Danish built that, right? And this this silly thing. Yes, obviously the French know nothing of engineering.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Then why did they try to ruin the new Prince of Persia? :( Sands of Time was beautiful...the only problem I had with it was that it was too short.
Now it feels like I'm playing Jerry Bruckheimer's Prince of Persia. Fight. Fight. Cheesy line. Fight. Oh, here's an actual puzzle. Oh, wait. A fight.
Please credit:
George Carlin
with that quote from the Tonight Show about 15 years ago.
The French government versus Electronic Arts? I give them three days before the white flags come out. :)
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Thanks for posting that. I was just thinking that was one of the best comments I've ever read on this site. Now I know why.
"The loss of companies that move out of France + the loss of jobs from buyout/layoffs will force France to actually support a pro-business environment instead of a entitlement burdened nanny state."
Are you trying to be funny?
I was hating EA back in the days of the Genesis.
You think you can waltz in here and hate EA now because it's the "in" thing to do?
YOU'RE TEN YEARS LATE MOTHERFUCKERS!
Canada
Thanks for coming along once whe add the german on the run
I am a REAL American from Canada , not a wanna-be from the country , self called "last remaining superpower" "of America
that they would be speaking Russian.
"Fat chicks need love, too.
They just gotta pay."
Glen Quagmire
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Women shouldn't have any hair below their necks!
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Typical American company, if they are a threat to you just take them over, Microsoft does it all the time, now a gaming companies are doing it. Nice. Why should we have SOMEONE ELSE make better games? & I will say, UBI makes better looking games then EA, & I am sure they dont inSLAVE their employees like EA does.
P.S.I am an American.