Electronic Arts Finally Gives Up Bid for Take-Two Interactive

[Ginger_Ale]

After a few extensions of negotiations between Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive, both video game publishers, to agree to a deal in which EA would acquire Take-Two, EA has now decided not to pursue it further, according to a Bloomberg news article. Electronic Arts stated that, since they would not gain the benefits of the holiday selling season, their bid would no longer yield satisfactory results.

Their latest offer had been $25.74 per share, something rejected by Take-Two's board. This means that there is still potential for Take-Two to remain independent. Take-Two is, of course, the current publisher for the Civilization series.

 

[Ace of Gold]

thank goodness. Who knows what will happen if EA takes control of Firaxis

 

[CrimsonEdge]

Good. All EA does is gobble up companies for yearly holiday sales and then dumps the people inside of it and replaces them with EA employees to make terribad games with an established name.

 

[Luckystrike77]

Good! Their statement also proves how short termish they (EA) are thinking.......

 

[apenpaap]

That's some very good news. EA is a very fundesroyerist company. confused:Is that a a word? )

 

[Thorn]

True, but there goes any hope for Alpha Centauri II.
Maybe Sid can change the destination of the Civ starship to Rigil Kentaurus and call the remake that.

 

[quill18]

Good. All EA does is gobble up companies for yearly holiday sales and then dumps the people inside of it and replaces them with EA employees to make terribad games with an established name.

EA: Experts in transmuting gold to lead.

 

[CivOtaku]

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Theil ruin civilization!!!!!!!!!! Where's that gun? oh, here it is! :suicide:

 

[Phoenix_Fire91]

I agree with all the above posters. If EA got publishing rights they would ruin Civilization.

 

[Blitzscream]

yeah but their could be a bright side to that we could've gotten the rights of Alpha centurai back.

 

[Random Fires]

I don't think this is entirely over. EA wanted something Take Two has. There's still that trade commission ruling coming this week,and there's always another holiday season. Besides, between Take Two,2K,EA, and Firaxis... It's hard to tell who's making games these days, rather then just making money.

 

[cephalo]

Good! Their statement also proves how short termish they (EA) are thinking.......

I think this is a key observation. I glad that t2 will be gaining the well deserved rewards of the Holiday season.

 

[OctopusOverload]

Pro: One step back from PC-gaming market monopoly.

Con: There goes the Alpha Centauri license... FOREVER.

 

[redifederal]

There is a small movement among MP players to raise the money themselves to buy Fireaxis and fire everyone responsible for MP. LOL!!Maybe if EA bought them out things would actually work as they should and programmers would be held responsible for their jobs. Then again it would probably kill civ.........

 

[Donny Brook]

Soren, formerly of Firaxis and a welcome resource to this forum, is now on the programming team for EA's upcoming release of Spore. It's getting a lot of pre-release attention, so let's wait and see before bad-mouthing EA too much.

Don't be surprised to see this marriage happen, despite the news of the day. Take Two was holding out for a better price. I read one analyst who said they may squeeze another dollar out of EA and claim victory.

Or they could do the Yahoo! thing and spoil the windfall for all their shareholders. Remember, the stock was about $16 before EA came along. And one would think that the staff are all big shareholders.

 

[Dirk Knight]

Although I may be a newb to this forum, I'm very familiar with the way EA operates when it comes to fan based/driven game series. They don't listen or care what the people who buy the games think, they only listen to what their Sales and Marketing division think they can do financially.

Witness how Sim Cities: Societies did in the marketplace. While they did farm the project out to Tilted Mill, the stated goal for SC:Societies was a "simplified" version of the Maxis Sim City 4 franchise using true 3d graphics. The fans of the franchise heatedly protested the grammer school version of their beloved game, and while Tilted Mill did their best to doctor it up, it still failed. Sales of SC:Societies bombed. (i do have hard facts and links to back this up.)

EA has publicly stated that their goal is to make games that appeal to larger markets and will continue to develop versions of their most popular game franchises into simpler, more user-friendly formats that have a broader appeal.

As to losing the AC franchise, while all of the artwork and storyline may be copyrighted, it was still basically a Civilization format with different graphics and storyline. Let EA have it. There are better ways to do it that aren't copyrighted.

If EA eventually gets a hold of T2, expect the same for the Civilization franchise.

Candyland Civ anyone?

 

[Blitzscream]

Ok I may be unaware but why do most of you don't support ea wanting to take over 2k

 

[Phoenix_Fire91]

Why do we not want EA taking over another great PC game franchise? Because they'll ruin it. As previous posters have said, EA Games only cares about the $$$ and could care less about the quality of their product or their fan base.

 

[Blitzscream]

.....

 

[Thorn]

Yeah, and the first thing they would do is make sure that Civ: Revolutions WOULD BE the first of console only Civ games while killing the PC version for good. Take a look at EA Sports for the PC. The last baseball version they released for the PC was in 2005.