EA Attempts Hostile Take-Two Takeover
- Thread starter Neil79
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 4 Nov 2004
- Posts
- 4,220
- Location
- Seattle area, USA
So, so greedy 
Why can't they just bug off and leave the GTA franchise alone ?
Why can't they just bug off and leave the GTA franchise alone ?
Perhaps I worded it wrong. I didn't mean what is the process. Say for example if EA owned Take-Two, what does that change compared to before? I know it seems like a stupid question. Do EA then simply own all the rights Take-Two had, and the skills of their workers etc? Do they control what Take-Two do from then on? That's what I'm not sure about.
Oh right. Public companys are supposed to make money for their shareholders, so if EA hold them then they would have a lot of influence over take2. I'm not sure if they would be able to choose who goes on the board of directors or anything like that though (Just remeber a bit about public/private companys from gcse BS studies lol).
It's very simple. A company has a value and that value is based upon the assets it owns, the liabilities it has and the value of shareholder stock.
What they do when they buy a company is they consider how much they'll pay for it today, how much cash it will generate in the meantime (while they own it) and what they can expect to sell it for later on.
They then make a bid for the company based on this and they will usually have a range between the minimum they expect to pay and the maximum they can afford to pay to meet a certain return hurdle.
make sense?
Yes exactly - once you buy the company you own whatever assets it has. That includes it's current production line, any rights or licenses it has, the employees that work for it etc.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Mar 2004
- Posts
- 8,436
- Location
- Kent
People like - sorry, love - to say EA make nothing but bad games. Get with the timesYes that makes sence, why do people go like "Oh noes EA has bought <company>" "Another company ruined
Ah right just saw your edit, that's what I thought, ty.
Yes that makes sence, why do people go like "Oh noes EA has bought <company>" "Another company ruined
Ah right just saw your edit, that's what I thought, ty.
Well often when companies are bought by other companies the original "spirit" of that company is gone. Basically it's payday for the shareholders and the directors who usually head off after, and everyone else is stuck with what's left.
Companies like EA understand that what it boils down to is a number's game. It doesn't matter if you're producing crap because as long as you're producing 90% of what's on the market, people are gonna buy from you.
Obviously people don't like this because it means you buy from them out of necessity not because they genuinely offer a better product in most cases.
Soldato
- Joined
- 4 Nov 2004
- Posts
- 4,220
- Location
- Seattle area, USA
Bingo, and add-on packs, don't forget!
GTAIV: Christmas Wishes (Due out September, obviously) with added EA TRAX 
They must be getting desperate.
Last edited:
Yes that makes sence, why do people go like "Oh noes EA has bought <company>" "Another company ruined
Companies generally only buy other companies if: a) the target company is already successful in an area/market that the buying company wants to be, or b) the buying company thinks it can do better than the target company's current management team (e.g. make more profit).
In this case it will almost certainly be b), because EA already makes crime simulators (for want of a better phrase) and FPS games etc. This means that EA is going to change things at Take Two so that it is more profitable. Remember they have to make more profit to pay back the loan they'll take out to buy Take Two. This will mean they'll increase sales by releasing more games more often (GTA 2008, GTA 2009, GTA2010 etc) and cut costs (e.g. lay off workers, make the remaining work force work harder) which will do what to the quality of the games released?
This scenario has happened with every EA takeover I care to think about. I do not like the way the games publishing industry is going - the EA behemoth is already hurting innovation imo.
Edit: For anyone interested a good example of a) is the recent Activision/Blizzard merger. The Activision CEO has said that they considered doing their own MMO to compete with WoW but realised it would cost $1bn to make and success was not guaranteed. Hence buying/merging with Blizzard was the obvious thing to do.
Last edited:
*yawn* When's the EA hating going to stop? Almost as bad as the Star Wars Galaxies players who can't get over hating SOE.
I can't think of a franchise EA have ruined in a long time. Actually, let's list some cool EA games that came out recently:
Skate
Crysis
Fifa08
Burnout Paradise
Rock Band
The Orange Box
The list goes on, take your EA hating elsewhere, it's getting quite old.
Last edited:
People are bashing them because they are monopolising the market.
No they're not, they're bashing them because they seem to think when EA buys a company - they ruin them. Maybe 10 years ago (Westwood, Origin and Bullfrog come to mind), yes - but IMO, not anymore.
Besides, the industry is moving towards benefiting indy devs now anyway. With the likes of XBLA, WiiWare, PSN and Steam - there is no reason developers can't innovate and create great games by themselves. That's exactly what we're doing here at Frontier with LostWinds.
Last edited:
last i checked EA only publish for valve, they dont own valve
Yes? If a company publishes the game they basically fund it. I think the deal was slightly different with Valve (may have been distribution only), but in anycase - it has EA's name on it.