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Digital Illusions Sells to EA
A story we have reported on frequently in the last few months comes to an end as Digital Illusions accepts EA's bid for buyout. From the article at GameGossip: "Corresponding to 32.0% of outstanding capital and votes, in addition to a further acquisition of 898,264 shares and the 18.9% already held by the company, Electronic Arts now holds a total of 6,044,720 shares, a controlling interest representing 59.8% of the outstanding capital and votes in DICE."
Im so tired of EA. They may release 1 out of every 3 or 4 games in total, but its just plain sickening. I would rather have a fewer number of good games rather than a higher number of not so good games. By them buying up all the other game dev shops around, it is pretty much going to ensure that the indie developer and the small developer either get bought up and eaten by gamezilla, or are not able to compete even with a good game. bleh.
With the great working environment, flexible hours, and employee benefits at EA how can this not be good for DICE? oh wait never mind..
Bah. On the plus side, at least we'll get a thousand formulaic modern warfare large scale battle games. How can those ever get old?
:(
I'm sad
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
Another EA take-over / buy-out story. So are they ever going to release another version of MULE or what?
Does anyone at EA realize that you can be too big? Look at Walmart. Walmart can't do anything right because every group in the world is watching them. Soon EA will have everybody watching them. You get too big, you have to keep gobbling everything up just to stay alive. Long live the indies!
But i thought you went to jail for rolling double 3 times in a row...God damned monopolies.
... EA announces an exclusive deal with the American Military Historical Society that secures reproduction rights of all of America's wars. DICE will now be the only company allowed to reproduce WWI, WWII, the Korean, Vietnam and both Iraqi wars.
Grease & Counterbalance
The thing that makes me so upset about this is that it strangles creativity and innovation.
Small companies have to struggle to survive. So, these smaller game houses have to be creative and they have to find new/efficient ways of accomplishing their goals. The ones that survive are going to be able to produce quality games.
When the smaller companies get swallowed up by EA, it seems that they are basically told what to make. A sequel to a popular title that was, itself, a sequel. They are given better resources, but that only snuffs out innovation, but their creativity can still shine through. EA puts out many good games. And every so often they put out a great game. But overall, I feel it stagnates the market to have such a monopolistic market share.
There's only so far it should legally be allowed to go.
We could take bets on who's next. This purchase/buyout is not because of producing games remember, it's to boost stock at this time of year. If DICE make anything or not, it's almost irrelevant as EA will have sold the idea to it's own shareholders.
So this time next year, or maybe next November when the end of year reports are not looking so good, who's next to be gobbled up?
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
Beware the ides of March! And of September, for that matter. That's right, every six months will be time for EA to determine whether or not you could stand to lose a substantial portion of your workforce, since that's when budgets go into effect. My advice is to find a job outside of EA, unless you like your layoff excitement on a schedule.
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
.. kiss off the Battlefield series.
Too bad, too. I enjoyed them.
I used to work for DICE Canada. I was an employee at Sandbox / DICE Canada for about 2.5 years (it was called Sandbox Studios before it was purchased by DICE).
Once the studio was purchased, there were a few rounds of layoffs. I was one of them. From what former co-workers have told me, it appears that any sort of game development at DICE Canada is mostly an afterthought. The Big New Games are developed in Sweeden. DICE Canada gets to pump out expansion packs and the like. To be fair, that is a huge improvement over the sort of games that were developed when it was still called Sandbox.
Now that DICE is pretty much owned by EA, the Canadian studio in London Ontario is pretty much redundant. It was initially setup so that DICE would have a foothold in North America, making it easier to interact with North American publishers. EA has better facilities in Vancouver. I can see nothing preventing EA from folding the London Ontario studio and relocating everyone to Vancouver or just laying off those who dont want to move.
END COMMUNICATION
The Borg collective expands. ASSIMILATE.
"Dost thou have any idea of the number of dead people and creatures there are? I thought not. The dead of the ages are mine to summon and control. The graves of beloved ancestors will spew forth their contents into an army. A special treat for the living, mine undead monsters will be. Imagine a skeletal dragon that cannot be killed. Consider a cabal of everliving mages eternally enthralled to me. And the most beautiful part of my plot is that, as the living die in these battles, and they will die, they will swell the ranks of the undead host. I will rule supreme -- a world of the dead!"
- Horance, in Ultima VII: The Black Gate
Maybe Indie markets should get together and make an association to help sell games and fight EA. An example of how this helps, IGA, Independent Grocers of Association gives supermarkets around the world have the same buying power as Walmart. They need the same buying power to compete against the larger chains. They can buy the same products and get better discounts with the associations help.
If your business is being ran out, or bought out by a larger corporation, maybe its time to form some association so you can stay independent and maintain your business presence.
It will be interesting to see how mergers and buyouts change the world in the next 10 years, and how smaller companies react.
Where are your balls DICE? Did they get cut off by EA? I bet they did! Now we can choose from the following games, "WWII:Secret Holy War" "Vietnam:Conflict-Resolution" "Need for Speed:Antartica Underground Street Racer Collection"
Flat Screen TV for F