Infogrames Could Help Ubisoft vs. EA

GamesIndustry.biz iz reporting that in a show of European solidarity publisher Infogrames may assist Ubisoft (with the blessings of the French Government) if EA attempts a hostile takeover of the Prince of Persia developer. From the article: "Speaking to news agency Reuters, Bonnell expressed his hope that Ubisoft will remain independent - and rubbished EA's claim that its recent purchase of almost 20 per cent of the firm's stock was merely an investment." Further details on Greg Costikyan's Blog. All this is follow up to year-end shenanigans from EA.

Comments

Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that means the EA cafeteria will be selling "Freedom Fries"

Best quote ever....

[hollismb]

From Penny Arcade to EA:

PA: How do you respond to rumors that you are the fucking devil?

EA: EA does not comment on rumors.

Pun?

[Talrias]

GamesIndustry.biz iz reporting that in a show of European [...]

Iz that a pun?

Sorry, I couldn't rezizt commenting on thiz. I'm here all week.

History in the making...

[Anonymous Coward]

France stands up to aggression! Film at eleven.

In other news...

[k4_pacific]

Jordan Mechner has been kidnapped by unknown hostile assailants. A video released by his captors show him working 90 hour weeks at gunpoint in an unidentified office. Police suspect foul play.

No context..

[the_mad_poster]

Who the hell is Greg Costikyan and why is his blog a good source of information? It's called "context", folks. Before I read any of the linked text, I should know the basics about what's going on, who Ubisoft is, and who Costikyan is.

I'm getting sick and tired of reading writeups and being left to discern all of the information on my own. If you're going to claim to post news articles with information in them, you're going to have to actually provide some information.

Re:Let's Boycott EA

[grub]

All Slashdotters from this day forward should boycott all EA produced software.

What, by not downloading those torrents?

Funny...

[Evan Meakyl]

I read this morning here (in french, sorry!) that it was Vivendi Universal Games which was supposed to help Ubisoft....


But "In /. I trust ..." :D

Re:Funny...

[spac3manspiff]

The French industry of the video game tightens the elbows vis-a-vis with the attacker
PARIS (AFP),
05-01-2005

The French industry of the video game, whose brittleness burst at the great day with the intrusion of the American giant Electronic Arts in the capital of Ubisoft, is mobilized to preserve a part of its independence, which could pass by a bringing together between Vivendi Universal Games and Ubisoft.

The financial daily newspaper Agefi launched this assumption Wednesday, by affirming that the group of media Vivendi Universal, present in the plays vidéos with its division CONSIDERING Games (VUG), would have had preliminary contacts with Ubisoft.

Questioned, the groups concerned refused any comment. But the possibility of an increased defense of Ubisoft, which in spite of its smaller size is the French group of video games in less bad form, had the merit to make rebound the action of the Breton group, which gained 9,68% to 27,20 euros with 13h40.

Electronic Arts had announced on December 20 to have bought 19,9% of the capital of Ubisoft with Talpa Beheer, company controlled by John De Mol, cofounder of the house of Endemol production.

With with dimensions of Ubisoft, number two European of the sector, the French leader Infogrames fights to make accept a complicated financial rescue plan, while VUG is an important hearth of losses for Vivendi. During the first three quarters 2004, VUG showed a trading loss of 185 million euros, on a sales turnover of 211 million euros.

"Since years, I repeat that the French editors of video games are threatened of disappearance and their difficulties were amplified by the recent explosion of the cost of the licences and the development of the products", indicated to AFP Jean-Claude Larue, president of the SELL (Trade union of the software publishers of leisure).

The important video games represent today for the editors of the investments of more than 50 million euros, between the purchase of the licences (20 million euros), the increasingly complex work of writing of the software for several platforms (consoles and computers) and of the budgets marketing which can reach 20 to 30 million euros.

Vis-a-vis with countries like China or Canada, where the creation of plays is less expensive or is subsidized, French industry obtained government Raffarin a clear assertion of her will of support, in particular at the time of the proclamation by the Prime Minister in Futuroscope in April 2004 of a "passenger waybill" for the sector.

But principal promised measurement, a tax credit making it possible to lower the costs of the investments in France, still did not come into effect, for lack of agreement of Brussels.

One of the most former editors of plays of the hexagon, Titus Interactive, which fought since years for its survival, announced at the beginning of week its setting in bankruptcy.

As, a regrouping of the French groups it is planned to prevent as the world leader Electronic Arts, whose prosperity contrasts with the difficulties of good of other American groups, comes to make his market with leisure among the French editors.

The owner of the group Vivendi Jean-Rene Fourtou affirmed on several occasions that after having planned to separate from his division video games, it had decided to restructure it, and to even resort to acquisitions for better rectifying it from the point of view of a future transfer or an introduction out of purse.

But VUG, which in the past had not known to exploit the great popularity acquired by its educational plays Adi and Adibou, does not gain today the successes discounted over its last great plays, Half Life 2 and Warcraft, according to professionals'.

Whereas the Guillemot brothers, who controlent 17% of Ubisoft, continue to try to rejoin other shareholders, like the Case of the Deposits, to concrete their minority of control, certain analysts of the sector doubted Wednesday that the best means of consolidating Ubisoft is to make him absorb new hearths of losses.

Infogrames is Atari.

[ananegg]

Didn't Infogrames change their name to Atari? http://www.atari.com/

Help? Fight?

[Humorously_Inept]

What can Infogrames do except buy enough of Ubisoft to control it entirely or at least deny EA a controlling stake? Either way, this offer of help doesn't exactly sound like charity.

Is there any place on the web where we can get capitalization information and statistics on foreign companies? Both Infogrames and Ubisoft are public, but neither has stock listed in the Americas and I can't seem to find info like floats, capitalizations, insider/institutional holdings, amount of cash available, etc. EA's a pretty big company sitting on a pretty fat wallet (to the tune of 2.5B in cash).

Re:ok, how long

[WIAKywbfatw]

These constant anti-French comments are pathetic. One of your country's oldest allies is hestitant about giving you carte blanche to invade other sovereign states and all of a sudden it's open season on France?

The whole "let's declare war on anything associated with the word 'french' in it" is just pathetic. Really, it just is so petty and ridiculous that it borders on infantile: are freedom fries any tastier than french fries? No? I didn't think so.

Grow up. It's shit like this that has cost you the almost all of international support and goodwill that was apparent in the aftermath of September 11th.

That name..

[Frac]

Everytime I see Infogrames, I can't help but wonder whether someone screwed up when they registered the company Infogames.

"Hey Bob, can you take a look at the incorporation documents? What's with the 'R' in the company name?"
"Ohhh...... fuck."

Re:That name..

[El Cabri]

-grames is the French version of a common (latin?) suffix indicating something written, or a record. Program, Sonogram, Grammar, (Deutsch) Grammophon, etc.

Plan of Attack

[LegendOfLink]

It's quite simple, Infogames will turn off the lights and EA will be eaten by a GRUE!

Re:ok, how long

[J-Doggqx]

When I go to a restaurant that has freedom fries on the menu I typically ask them, "Could I have French fries instead of the freedom fries? Freedom fries leave a bad taste in my mouth."

I do the same thing for French toast also.

Re:ok, how long

[necrognome]

Our secondary education system, as a whole, leaves much to be desired. Most Americans know less of American history than recent immigrants. Forgive the ignorant, for they know not what they post to slashdot.

I don't understand

[ifwm]

why so many people seem to be happy that EA may not get Ubisoft. If it's because you think EA makes crappy games, and will make Ubisoft make crappy games, then ok I get it.

But there are you others. You seem to be assigning a sense of romanticism here, as though EA were attempting to defile the virtue of Ubisoft. What the hell is wrong with you people?

Re:I don't understand

[Bagels]

Ubisoft, unlike EA, occasionally has some bit of originality in their games - see Prince of Persia: Sands of Time or Beyond Good and Evil. The worry is that we'd end up with Prince of Persia 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, etc... or an endless stream of expansions, or any of a number of other mediocre ideas that EA has pushed on the market.

Re:I don't understand

[UWC]

I think it might be more that EA has been reviled of late for apparent monopolistic ambitions (and assumed overcommercialization, common-denominator pandering, and stifling of creativity as a result--all unproven but potentially valid fears) and poor treatment of its direct employees. The rumored takeover plans for Ubisoft I think are opposed out of distrust for EA and a feeling that they might not, at the moment, deserve the increased revenues that the acqusition of another major developer would bring. That and the fact that Ubisoft is one of few commercially known studios still operating outside of the umbrella of the likes of EA or Vivendi-Universal.

Re:European Solidarity?

[mmkkbb]

German law prohibits any foreign entity from gaining a controlling interest in Volkswagen.

Foreign airlines are prohibited from flying between US cities.

Japan makes bogus claims to turn away shipments of US vehicles.

It's not just France.

Only on slashdot...

[xgamer04]

I love how everything that is critical (no matter how just the claims are and how well they are written) gets modded down here. And then we get +5 funny "in soviet korea" garbage. :P

Re:ok, how long

[fbonnet]

Let me know what they do for us, then figure out what we do for them. compare those two lists.

Guess who is helping the US most in Afghanistan? And who was the first leader to visit New York in the aftermath of 09/11 ? (hint: his first name is Jacques).

Comparing lists as you suggest is not a correct way of handling relationships between such two long-lasting allies.

The reason why the French are so upset about the USA is that they wasted the vast amount of sympathy they gained after 09/11 by engaging into a so called "war on terrorism" that rather looks like a struggle to safeguard their own interests (oil, dollar...). The reason why the USA are so upset about France is because they tried to make the UN prevail above these interests. Please stop watching Fox News and get some real information.

Big fish, little fish...

[ag4vr]

I was wondering, given France's 35-hour work week, how they could legally have crunch times which are common to other game development studios.

A little Googling shows that Ubisoft has facilities in several countries and actually purchased two U.S. studios (RedStorm and Game Studio) in 2000-01.

It appears that they've been a part of the general consolidation in the games industry as well.

I also have to wonder whether the Feds and/or the EU would allow an outright takeover in the first place, given the antitrust implications.

Re:And people wonder why the EU is weak?

[El Cabri]

There is no mention anywhere of subsidizing Infogrames. Anyway each and every government on earth "subsidizes" various economic sectors and corporations as they see fit. Direct subsidies are outlawed by various trade pacts and international treaties, but there are many holes in those and many other indirect ways for a government to weight in on an economic sector if it think this is strategically useful.

The US federal government does a lot of this, sometimes directly through subsidies (for example, the agriculture), through pork barrel programs, often of military nature (how many billions have the useless NMD poured into Boeing's and Lockheed's R&D depts ?), often through corporate wellfare, such as the Foreign Sales tax breaks that have been recently outlawed by the WTO, sometimes through tarriffs, for example on steel, which were also outlawed by the WTO, but lasted just enough for the American mills to restructure and survive until the explosion of Asian demand for steel, or the on Canadian lumber. The tax deduction of mortgage interest and the "soft sponsoring" of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac correspond to an effective subsidizing of the residential real-estate sector, etc...

Your US Airways example is bad, because the US has precisely massively, if indirectly, subsidized airlines after 9/11, in a manner that has drawn numerous complaints from Europe.

With what money?

[Orne]

Look Infogra.. *cough*, Atari is having enough problems with their finances as it is. This mildly annoys me, since I happen to have some of their stock in my portfolio (still waiting for it to break even).

They have to postpone a shareholder meeting because they can't get a quorum to vote on their bonds that are due this upcoming July, and now they want to give money away just to float another company? Yeesh! so much for a recovery...

f ea

[SubtleNuance]

EA has the money to "invest" in Ubisoft because they are STEALING from their employees. Uncompensated work is criminal.

Fuck EA.

Re:First time for everything

[FuroTheRed]

France isn't the totally spineless country some Americans (including me, at times) make it out to be. At the the same time, so many of them don't respect us. What do you expect?

They helped us start our country. We saved their hindparts in WWII. What we need is mutual respect and support.