EA and WORLD DOMINATION - PART 2!!!

[Fats]

Electronic Arts has made a move to buy a 20 percent share of French-based publisher Ubisoft, the Wall Street Journal today announced.

The deal would cost EA anywhere between $85 million and $100 million, according to the respected business newspaper, and is subject to ratification by US regulators.

Ubisoft's catalogue of games would offer rich pickings for EA if they continued to acquire a greater share of the publisher. The Splinter Cell series has consistently hit the number one spot in the charts, while the Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six games are reliable money-spinners.

Ubi's Prince of Persia series has also received rave reviews, and the company has already moved into developing for Nintendo's DS with three games planned for the European launch.

EA has made no secret of its desire to acquire publishers and developers in an effort to cement its position as the largest videogames publisher in the world.

Recently it has purchased Brit developers Criterion (Burnout) and has also been in discussions with Battlefield developer DiCE.

www.computerandvideogames.com

[Z]

What you did is very childish. A thread has been locked, and you go open the same topic? What are a 3 year old? Sure you got Sonic but grow up already!

[Omega Blue]

What you did is very childish. A thread has been locked, and you go open the same topic? What are a 3 year old? Sure you got Sonic but grow up already!

That was closed for a completely diffrent reason, and the circumstances under the the topic are also diffrent. Read both storys, its pretty big news actually.

You need to stop knit picking, pay more attention, read the topic. Dont jump on peoples backs, leave that to the mods and admins. If they see something not right, they'll deal with it.

On Topic: What do you expect from EA? If you have the money, do it. You can't take it with you when you die. If EA can make its stance in the game developement industry even more evident their gonna do it. Not many of you i can tell are buisness majors. Sh*t im only 17 and i can see why they are making these sudden steps and moves. Dont hate'em for having good buisness tactics on some message board. Do hate'em for the countless mediocre games they put out.

[Brandon]

The NFL auctioned off its licenses for football games, and EA is full of dumb asses, so it's a winning combination ;) How many more companies will they need to buy before they feel satisfied? I can only hate them more and more.

[Pumster]

The NFL auctioned off its licenses for football games, and EA is full of dumb asses, so it's a winning combination ;) How many more companies will they need to buy before they feel satisfied? I can only hate them more and more.
I completely agree - This is terrible news. Ubisoft's going to be crushed and all the creativity and potential we've seen will be gone in a matter of years.

We need an "Anti-EA" sticky. :lol:

[Fats]

What you did is very childish. A thread has been locked, and you go open the same topic? What are a 3 year old? Sure you got Sonic but grow up already!

Ahem... Moving on... :roll:

As you said Omega, another good move from a business perspective. But as a gamer, we should expect to see a lot more shit from the EA stable. Anyone got an idea how many companies EA have bought in total? I just had a wee look on Google there to find EA's total marketshare, but couldn't find much! :x

UPDATE ::

EA revises the conditions of its buyout deal after shareholders say, "No DICE".

Electronic Arts has changed one of the conditions of its bid for Swedish games developer Digital Illusions CE and extended the acceptance period until January 20th 2005 in a move that demonstrates the publisher's determination to acquire the firm.

Last week, key shareholders representing some 28 per cent of DICE stock rejected EA's proposed deal, which the developer's board of directors had previously recommended they accept, arguing that remaining independent was a more attractive option in light of forthcoming releases in the firm's popular Battlefield series - ownership of which is undoubtedly one of EA's key goals.

With their opposition taken into account and the original acceptance deadline of December 16th now expired, EA's offer would only net the publisher some 4,498,697 shares - or 44.5 per cent of the outstanding capital and votes in DICE - which would not be enough to satisfy the terms of its proposal, despite the compliance of second largest shareholder Bonnier & Bonnier AB and DICE employees with significant shareholdings. A condition of EA's bid was that it became owner of more than 90 per cent of the votes in DICE.

However, EA's latest move conditions the offer upon a lower acceptance level of more than 50 per cent of the total number of shares - representing more than 50 per cent of the capital and votes in DICE after dilution due to an employee option programme launched in 2002. As a consequence the publisher has also extended the acceptance period to January 20th. It has not, however, revised its offer, which still stands at SEK 61 in cash per share.

The outcome of the revised proposal should be made clear on or about January 26th, but given the existing shareholders' decision to talk to the financial press in Sweden last week, we expect there will be more to come to terms with in the coming weeks.

Regardless of the outcome, EA is set to publish DICE's Battlefield 2 on PC next year, along with PS2, Xbox and potentially Xbox 2 versions of Battlefield: Modern Combat.

www.gameindustry.biz

[Z]

Oops, I made a bobo. :oops:

You see, I had a bad time with a mod of another forum, and when I came back I saw, what I thought, the seams locked thread opened again. So I thought it was a smart aleck- it did happen before. After all, you could have chosen any other name than put ‘part2’ to a closed thread.
In any case, I am to blame, and I am sorry for the confusion from my part. That’s haste for ya. No hard feeling, hedgehog :wink:
P.S. I liked the way you handled it, kudos man! 8)

Now enough of this mushy stuff, and let’s get to business:

I don’t know why this ‘anti-EA’ atmosphere that is been going on all around recently. I wish for every company to thrive and succeed (especially- I have a soft spot for Sega). And EA does make the second best sport titles, after Sega, in my opinion. The also make the fantastic Need for Speed series ( especially Hot Pursuit). I don’t have a problem with them expanding and growing. What I do have concerns about is being the ‘Micro$ucks’ of the gaming world. I was a bit worried when they recently acquired Criterion. They are the makers of the Renderware engine, which 20% of PS2 games are made from. But that can also be a good thing, with EA’s financial and media support that could help improve the status. Sure they make a lot of sloppy games –not ‘bad’ but ‘sloppy’- as do MOST of western Devs, Compared to far eastern ones.
High production values can sometimes hurt a game. Core game play is more essential. I hope they focus more on fixing the mediocre games.

[Rob78]

I don’t know why this ‘anti-EA’ atmosphere that is been going on all around recently.
Because the company is the biggest and richest, yet they want to re-assure themselves that almost 50% of every game a gamer purchases is in some way involved with Electronic Arts.

[Z]

so you say it is just a success envy?
would we feel the same if Squareenix was inplace of EA? (now THERE'S a thought.. :twisted: ) for staters, every male in every game will look like a girl :lol:

[Rob78]

so you say it is just a success envy?
would we feel the same if Squareenix was inplace of EA? (now THERE'S a thought.. :twisted: ) for staters, every male in every game will look like a girl :lol: Ohhh...crap, now Im gonna have nightmares because of you!

[GTShotoKen]

Oops, I made a bobo. :oops:

You see, I had a bad time with a mod of another forum, and when I came back I saw, what I thought, the seams locked thread opened again. So I thought it was a smart aleck- it did happen before. After all, you could have chosen any other name than put ‘part2’ to a closed thread.
In any case, I am to blame, and I am sorry for the confusion from my part. That’s haste for ya. No hard feeling, hedgehog :wink:
P.S. I liked the way you handled it, kudos man! 8)

Now enough of this mushy stuff, and let’s get to business:

I don’t know why this ‘anti-EA’ atmosphere that is been going on all around recently. I wish for every company to thrive and succeed (especially- I have a soft spot for Sega). And EA does make the second best sport titles, after Sega, in my opinion. The also make the fantastic Need for Speed series ( especially Hot Pursuit). I don’t have a problem with them expanding and growing. What I do have concerns about is being the ‘Micro$ucks’ of the gaming world. I was a bit worried when they recently acquired Criterion. They are the makers of the Renderware engine, which 20% of PS2 games are made from. But that can also be a good thing, with EA’s financial and media support that could help improve the status. Sure they make a lot of sloppy games –not ‘bad’ but ‘sloppy’- as do MOST of western Devs, Compared to far eastern ones.
High production values can sometimes hurt a game. Core game play is more essential. I hope they focus more on fixing the mediocre games.

I may have misinterpreted how the deal went down, but EA has been trying to buy off an exclusive license for the NFL for a long time now. They already own several franchises and most of the sports gaming industry, which is very bad (in my opinion) for the gaming industry because there will be no competition between developers, which will make them lose their stride to make their games that much better because they have no competition to outshine.

Competition in the gaming industry is a major factor in what has made games become so much more than what they were.

Some minds in the industry think that EA will license out rights to NFL intellectual properites to other developers to make an even bigger profit (which is very smart none the less), but we have to see.