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EA Launches 'Hostile' Bid for GTA Publisher
Games news sites are reporting that EA has issued a new offering to Take-Two's shareholders in an attempt to purchase the company outright. Last month EA offered some $2 billion to Take-Two in an effort to accomplish the same goal. Take-Two declined, and EA took their offer public. Now, Electronic Arts is offering the price of some $26 per share to Take-Two's holders, a generous valuation. "Within ten business days Take-Two is required by law to publish, send or give to shareholders (and file with the Securities and Exchange Commission), a statement as to whether it recommends acceptance or rejection of the latest offer ... Since EA launched its February bid Take-Two said that other parties had approached it regarding a merger, but that it hadn't entered into negotiations with other companies about a deal."
I watch them to do this to Maxis after they bought them out. We went from an absolutely great concept (Sim City) that was implemented nearly perfectly in Sim City 2000 (given the technological limitations of the time) to unstable bloated garbage that cared more about pretty graphics (Sim City 3000) then gameplay and required Google's server farm to run at a decent speed....
And don't even get started on 'The Sims'. Even if I thought it was a good concept (which it might be -- but it's no Sim City, IMHO) WTF is up with twenty thousand different "expansion" packs? They neglected a great franchise (Sim City) in favor of using the brand name to push a crappy product that they sold in 30 different parts.
Why'd ya have to sell out Will?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
EA offered to buy them a couple weeks ago. Take Two refused. So now EA is pissed and wants in before the next release of GTA. IMO, this is a bad move for EA. GTA has been a good franchise, but it is all TT has. Plus, how many times can you rehash the same thing (whoops that's what EA is famous for lol). I'm not so sure I would value GTA in it's current state at 2B. The GTA franchise has sold 66M game to date. At $50/each that's 3.3B over the life of the franchise. You have to assume the franchise will continue to grow for a 2B price tag. Speaking of growth, will Nintendo even let a game like GTA on the wii?
Cue GTA 2009. .. and GTA 2010, GTA 2011, GTA 2012, GTA 2013...
:(
Yeah, except with EA in control, don't expect the same GTA edginess. More accurately - queue the nerfing of Rockstar Games.
I'm wondering what chart you're looking at. The Chart you lined peaks at $10.87 in 1999. It was over $28 in 2005.
Take Two was really undervalued because on one round of poor selling titles, and various lawsuits. EA realized this. It would be irresponsible for them to bid more than they thought the company was worth. This offer is the same as the previous one. $26/share == $2billion.
The analysts (who may be full of crap, of course) all seem to be saying that they expect it to take $29 - $31/share to get a deal done. Will EA pony up another $500mil? If you ask me, people who like video games should hope not.
The next title of the game has already been developed, and it is about to be released, with guaranteed profits. It is no surprise that EA sees a quick way to boost their quarterly earnings reports.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
If this was to go through, it would pretty much mean the end of major sports games competition, eh?
I have a feeling this whole buying thing has to do with 2k sports, EA's only rival in the sports games.
I'm not sure that's all that good of a metric. A 'Sims' product may have been on the shelves, and if you aggregate them it's the best selling, but a starcraft product has been on the shelves since 1998. And it's the same product. In glorious 800x600 sprite graphics!
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
EA - Actively trying to ruin your favorite hobby for a good 20 years now. I mean really - are they not going to be happy until they own every game developer in existence and can charge 60 bucks a year for an incremental update to every franchise and brand under the sun?
Now I'm not saying it's the best game in world, but it's certainly a success.
Well that's what EA does. They're not in this industry to make great games and have a loyal fan base*, they're in it to make truck loads of cash in any way they can. This usually boils down to buying companies who have a loyal fan base and game names with good reputation, then driving them into the ground. I'm not saying EA is incapable of making good or original games, just that this is what they tend to do.
*I realize all companies are in it to make money. A lot of them consider good products and a loyal following to be a good move financially.
This is a great example of a point I want to make...
/.: Remember, EA makes games for the mass audience. That may or may not cater directly to you, but it doesn't mean EA sucks. It just means they make games that aren't catered to you. EA's devs are among the brightest and most talented in the world, but they just aren't given enough space to make the games they could.
EA makes crap games sometimes, especially when they buy a license they then want to milk. For example, from The Sims comes all the expansion packs, but also The Urbz and The Sims Online... Bunch of crap.
What nobody's giving EA credit for, however, is they do actually own up to their mistakes and work to improve on them.
Disclosure: I worked at EA Redwood Shores for 6 months in a creative position on a major title about a year ago now and the experience was very eye opening. Let me say it again: EA owns up to their mistakes and works to improve them. EA was spending tons of money on licenses that didn't perform extremely well on the market, so they're putting a larger focus on new IP, such as Dead Space. I remember going to an all hands meeting where last year's craptacular NBA Live was called, "an embarassment."
Personally, I think EA's games would be much, much better if they A) lenghtened their dev cycles and B) gave more ownership to the artists, to make the games they envision...
But the bottom line we all have to remember here is that EA is a company that makes mass-market games. That's what they do. They make mass-market games and frankly they're not terrible at it. Compare their track record to another company, say, like Midway or Infogrames/Atari/whatever they're called now or Ubisoft and really, overall they perform well. The developers I met at EA are very passionate about what they do, but it's very clear that the games made there are made for the mass audience and to please the shareholders.
When I was still in college, one of the Redwood Shores studio leads spoke at my school and something he said that haunted me the whole time I was EA was, "Once you accept that it really is all about the shareholders, it gets a lot easier."
Again, my greatest criticism about the way EA makes games is that they just don't take enough time to do it. They claim that it's shareholder pressure that forces games out of the door, but I don't buy it. They're on top, they should be able to make the rules. They have something like two billion dollars in liquid reserves, so you'd think they could afford to chill out a little, but that's not the nature of our stock-market economy, where corporations are expected to show rising growth EVERY YEAR... What do you do when you're huge and global already?
I find it discouraging that Dead Space is due out in October. It seems that because Will Wright saw Spore's launch date extended, everybody else is having to play catchup so that EA has some profits to show this year. As a result, Dead Space is only going to see really a year and a half of development time, where undoubtedly the designers will be working those eighty hour weeks to just get it done... LOL, at the end of a project, the favorite word is KS: "Known Shippable." for all those bugs we'd LIKE to fix but just don't have the time/resources.
So, EA: Hire more people, work them fewer hours, give your games longer dev cycles. The world will thank you for it.
And
Very simply, EA overworks their staff. They take advantage of passionate, talented indviduals who want their work to shine and have every ability to do just that... if they had more time.
In the same breath, I don't think it's wise to just say, "EA sucks" and dismiss them. I replied to your post in particular, but in my head I'm replying to a bunch of anti-EA sentiments I find all over
Maybe my point is: EA sucks, but not for the reasons most people cite.
And they're in position not to suck forever. They could conceivably turn things around and it might take buying and running more studios into the ground before they figure it out.
On the Maxis topic, I heard much talk around EARS about how Maxis coming to EA had done more to change the way EA operates than the way Maxis operates. Maxis brought with them shorter hours, TGIF parties every other week, a more open office environment, etc. etc., all this stuff was that was completely taboo at EA before they arrived is now integrating into the work/lifestyle, at least at EARS. I hear some of the other studios are still really, really bad (like Tiburon).
I talked to some of the top brass there and they all were saying, "Crunch is becoming a thing of the past," but from what I can gather, it's a lie they keep telling themselves so they can hope next year they'll maybe get to see their kids for ten minutes...
EA has everything in place... and they'd be great...
But right now, they're not great, they're mediocre. Mediocre != suck.