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EA want Rockstar
Æthelred
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is interesting.. EA's attempted acquisition of Take 2 is rolling on at the moment, but we had thought that since Rockstar would be going independent quite soon, EA wouldn't get either Rockstar's personnel or Rockstar's IP - the most notable of which is of course Grand Theft Auto. It seems EA's chief executive thinks otherwise:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7294812.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7294812.stm
BBC wrote:Rockstar and its franchise Grand Theft Auto is the "primary interest" of EA's attempted purchase of Take Two games, said chief executive John Riccitiello. Mr Riccitiello said: "I believe the company is fully justified in calling themselves Rockstar because that's what they are in this industry."
Take Two turned down EA's first approach and so the games giant is now targeting shareholders directly. Take Two boss Strauss Zelnick said the EA offer undervalued the firm. Mr Zelnick has said EA should wait until after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV on 29 April. Analysts predict it will be the biggest release of the year, with sales upwards of 10 million copies. Mr Riccitiello told BBC News: "If we don't conclude this transaction, if we walk because of whatever level of inability to get this done, the scary thing is what the stock trades at after we leave, not after 29 April."
He said Take Two had four of the best studios in the industry: Rockstar, makers of Grand Theft Auto; Irrational, makers of Bioshock; Firaxis, home to Sid Meir and Civilization and Visual Concepts, makers of sport titles. "What we are attracted to is what we value in our own studios: great developers and great intellectual property." Mr Riccitiello said he had great respect for the producers behind Grand Theft Auto, Sam and Dan Houser and Leslie Benzies. "The big headline here is that our primary interest is in Rockstar and the intellectual properties around Rockstar."
He said the bid was not an attempt to remove a competitor in the field of sport titles. "Sports games are secondary consideration here," he said. He said he had no fear that the value EA placed on Take Two could be damaged if the trio of Rockstar creators decided not to pursue further Grand Theft Auto titles after the latest release. He said: "There is no doubt that EA is several times larger than Take Two - everyday somebody walks in and somebody walks out.
"If the wrong guy walks out, we have an issue to deal with. But we don't stop making games." He added: "In case of Rockstar I would point out that the leaders are young, vibrant, they're talented and committed. "And what we have got right now is a corporate issue that has nothing to do with the people who build these games." He said concerns that EA's buyout would stifle innovation were unfounded and pointed to franchises and games that had improved after the firm had bought the original development talent.
"We worked collectively with Will Wright to create The Sims. When we bought Maxis, Sim City was selling 7 to 800,000 copies. "The Sims is a level of performance to Sim City that the Empire State Building is to a very nice house." He said games like Battlefield, Burnout, Need for Speed and Madden were franchises which were stronger following EA's purchase of the original development firms.
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Fuck.
Actually Maxis was reluctant to make The Sims and EA funded and pushed for it to be finished in development.
The subsequent mass production of addon packs is attributed to Maxis, not EA higher ups.
EA and The Sims was a smart move.
EA is nowhere near a monopoly in any area of gaming.
I mean, they're big. Very big. But a monopoly isn't just big.
This is the lamest quote I have ever seen.
A monopoly is when:
For the first, while I have no idea of the actual volume of EA sales in relation to total video game sales, but I doubt if EA changed their prices that others would follow suit.
For the second, EA seems to be concentrating on established companies for acquisition, rather than snapping up any company thats trying to enter the market.
A large company such as EA is no rarity in other markets, so its not exactly suprising to see it in this market.
Why's this?
Oh well. Still sucks for gamers, unless this "new EA" isn't some smoke and mirror trick. Still holding out for that one.
It should be pointed out that EA was also incredibly reluctant to fund The Sims. They hedged for years as Will Wright kept pestering them. The execs saw it more as a project to get him off their back than an investment in a potential blockbuster.
It wasn't a smart move, EA succeeded despite their lack of business sense.
Early 80s, when the market Atari created got overpopulated with imitators and there was little quality control on games/consoles.
It's pretty unlikely that the gaming market will crash for the same reasons, but I wouldn't say there'll never be another crash.
1982-1983, you young 'un.
What happened was there was a flood of crappy Atari 2600 games and poor first party support, PLUS retailers, convinced video games were a fad, dropped them.
We won't see another crash because retailers now know video games are here to stay.
Game development is the wrong industry to be in if you want a monopoly. It just isn't going to happen - not on the software side, at least.
For one, there is no way at all for EA to prevent new companies from entering the market. Buying those companies as they enter the market isn't preventing them from entering the market. Nothing obligates the owners of those companies to sell. Also, paying off anyone who comes into the market to compete with you is hardly a disincentive to others thinking of entering the market.
Because games are not a commodity product, it isn't possible to drive out competition via price cutting. Games are highly differentiated products, and as such its an impossible market to dominate. There's always another niche for a new competitor to sprout from. The only way that EA could achieve dominance across the whole industry is if they're doing exactly the OPPOSITE of what people are afraid of - providing an extremely wide spectrum of very good games in such a way that consumers don't feel a need to buy games from any other provider.
There's nothing wrong with EA being big. They'll only stay this big if they do right by the consumer. EA Sports alone - the only segment where they really have consumer lock-in - is not enough to sustain the company at its current size. If they don't release good games, they'll blow up.
tldr; EA will only stay big if they make good games. If they make bad games, they won't stay big. Either way - not a huge problem for gamers - at least in terms of monopoly.
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake
Shiren FC: 3093-6912-1542
Well, there won't unless something huge, like a worldwide economic crisis, precipitates it. But at that point a videogame crash will be the least of our worries.
If the movie business can survive a worldwide economic crisis, so can the video game business.
Just because it can, doesn't mean it will.
TIN FOIL HAT TIME
BUY CANNED GOODS
FILL THE SINKS WITH WATER
As an EA employee I find it really funny that while not a direct connection, the EA takeover bid has inspired this line of communication.
猿も木から落ちる
Escapist entertainment is one of the most resilient businesses in existence. The worse things get, the more it's desired - which offsets poor economic conditions a good deal. (IIRC, cinema - then the cutting edge of escapist entertainment - continued to do quite well through the Great Depression)
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake
Shiren FC: 3093-6912-1542
The government has bailed out the movie companies so many times..
in fact, every time a industry starts to fail, the government bails them out. :x
OK, but going to see a movie is a HELL of alot cheaper than playing a videogame.
All I have to do to watch a movie is buy a ticket. To play a game I need to buy the console then the game.
I am not saying the video game industry couldn't survive, but to compare it to movies is a bit out there.
Edit: And to stay on topic I really don't see what is so wrong with EA trying to buy Rockstar via Take 2. They are a company, they want to make money. They see Rockstar making money hand over fist and they want to buy Rockstar so EA can make more money. Nothing wrong there.
They are not a monopoly, not by a longshot.
Fine. If the record industry can survive a worldwide economic crisis.
Please tell me you are not saying that the price of an album, be it CD or downloaded, could compare to the price of buying a new game.
Without derailing the thread, all I am saying is that the video game industry could very well crash if things were bad enough. Not die mind you, but crash and crash hard. And I think saying that if industry A could survie than Industry B could too when they are very different industries is way off man.
Put that all under one umbrella and there's no reason at all to innovate.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
There are other people who make sports games, but this sale would coincidentally rid EA of a big chunk of their biggest sports game competitors.
Then again, if the nurturing, hands-off philosophy of the supposedly less-evil EA is to be believed, Rockstar would have room to thrive and do their thing.
So I dunno.
Record players cost a lot of money. I have no clue how much the average record cost in the 1930's.
or Activision's. or Ubisoft's. or Microsoft's. or Sony's. or Nintendo's. or Midway's. or Epic's.
It won't be Midway's fault. They are barely alive as it is.
yeah Midway's the odd one out there
the point is there's tons of huge companies
what if an even larger, non game related company buys EA? Like Apple?
then is it Apple's fault when EA buys another company?
do you blame Apple for the decline of video games and also why your lives suck and that girl won't talk to you?
it's ridiculous.
So I don't think Rockstar will be adversely affected either way.
Shareholder: You want me to sell you my shares at market value when in a few months the price will double when GTA4 comes out?
Ea: Uhh....yes?
Shareholder:Go fuck yourself in the ass with leeches.
Clearly you don't know the stock market.
There are many, MANY cases in which a company can do well, yet its stock won't rise (or it will even fall). This is because the market is driven by emotion. And if too many investors think back at Take-Two's horrible mismanagement in the past, and the likelihood that rough times will likely return once GTA4 sales slow.
Thinking as an investor, the EA offer sounds like a profitable way to be rid of a headache of a company.
EA: Ok. We'll wait till 2 months after GTA4's release then offer you half what we are offering now. And you will accept. Because you will have no choice.