Posted by pogowolf on May 12, 2008
Where as this could be read as “so what?”, but this is a BILLION dollar loan..
According to [Kotaku], EA has borrowed 1 billion (put your pinky to your mouth when you say that) in order to buy out Take-two. EA has bee quoted to have said:
“There’s no news here,” said EA VP of communications Jeff Brown. “This is just a process point on something we announced in February.”
*sigh* EA in charge of GTA? Looks like GTA4 will be the last of the good GTA games.
Posted in News - General | Tagged: EA, GTA, Take-two | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pogowolf on March 13, 2008
With Take-Two Executive Chairman Strauss Zelnick having thoroughly rejected EA’s initial buyout offer, the Madden and Burnout publisher has redirected its corporate Katamari at Take-Two shareholders. EA has announced the commencement of a tender offer for all of the currently outstanding shares of common stock of Take-Two Interactive Software at $26 per share. Valued at approximately $2 billion, the offer reportedly represents a 64% premium over Take-Two’s closing stock price on February 15, the company’s last trading day before EA began its increasingly aggressive financial courtship. Compared to Wednesday’s stock price, it constitutes a 4.4% premium.
Barring extension, the tender offer is good until midnight EST on Friday, April 11, 2008. EA CEO John Riccitiello described the offer as “a great opportunity for Take-Two shareholders” and as a a way to “maximize the value” of their investment. “For EA shareholders, the combination would add additional intellectual properties to our already strong portfolio and welcome Take-Two’s talented creative teams to the great development organization we’ve built at EA,” he concluded.
Will shareholders deem this offer welcomed financial assistance or unwanted financial insistence? We’ll have to wait and see.
Via [Joystiq]
==========================================
God, I hope not. People complain about Microsoft being a monopoly but it’s ok for EA? Now, whereas EA has released a few good games they have also released a metric butt ton of crap. They have always tended to buy out a company for one or two titles and just kill off the rest of the games. (Anyone remember Bullfrog? How about Westwood?) When EA DOES come out with a new version of the game series they bought, it’s either massively funked up or just crap to begin with. C&C is a good example of that, they are getting better with the series, but that first version after the WestWood buy out sucked.
I also don’t understand why the shareholders of Take-Two would even WANT anyone to be looking over their shoulder asking if they want to sell. Granted, most of their line up right now pretty much dead; however, Bioshock just walked with a ton of awards. (it was good.. but it wasn’t THAT good) Also note that GTA4 is coming, and there are rumors of a GTA MMO in planning, and Bioshock 2 has been confirmed for development. Of Course, so long as Take2 doesn’t release anymore games like ‘Bully’ and ‘Manhunt’ and force more games like Bioshock though the pipes, the company is good to go there’s no reason to sell.
Though I would like to run a few of the comments from EA’s CEO John Riccitiello though the bull shit translator:
1) The offer is “a great opportunity for Take-Two shareholders”..
Translation
It’s a great opportunity for you to make some quick cash and re-invest it into EA, because we.. not you… now own BioShock, and the GTA series.
na na nana na. (Ok, that doesn’t work well in blog text.. but you get the idea)
2) the offer is a way to “maximize the value” of their investment. “For EA shareholders, the combination would add additional intellectual properties to our
already strong portfolio and welcome Take-Two’s talented creative teams to the great development organization we’ve built at EA,”
How can you maximize the value of something when you put a cap on the maximum value you would accrue?? Who knows how the sales of
Bioshock 2, and GTA 4 would ‘maximize the value’ of the current stakes holders with out needing EA to be involved in the first place?
3) “combination would add additional intellectual properties “
Translation:
Yeah! I got mail.. errr.. Games.
“welcome Take-Two’s talented creative teams “
Translation (To the tune of “Welcome to the jungle”):
Welcome to the sweat shop
We’ve got your fun and games.
We got everything you owned,
baby you know their names.
We are the people that can buy
any game we need
You know we’ve got the money, honey
and we know you won’t come for free
In the sweat shop
Welcome to the sweat shop
Watch it bring you to your
knees, please..
I wanna watch you bleed
Posted in News - General | Tagged: EA, John Riccitiello, Take-two | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pogowolf on March 12, 2008
We got this information from yesterday’s Take Two earnings call, but we wanted to break it out just to make sure you BioShock fans out there could get some sleep tonight. Chairman Strauss Zelnick stated during the call that series creator Ken Levine “will be working on BioShock 2.”
Now, it remains to be seen whether he’ll be working on the game or just sending encouraging email forwards about angels and pictures of cats hanging on branches to the 2K Marin team doing the bulk of the work. As gigantic, total, militant fans of BioShock, we certainly hope it’s the former. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
[Via Joystiq]
BioShock 2 has become official and is set to be released next year before the 2009 holidays; right around the same time that the original was released in 2007. BioShock 2 is not really a sequel, it’s a prequel, taking place before all the events in BioShock.
Kotaku reports BioShock 2 will give us a look at Rapture in its heyday before it went down the toilet. As to what’s actually in-store for the game, that’s not been released to us mere mortals.
[via blorge.com]
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Ok.. Great.. now where is the announcement of the BioShock MMO?!
Posted in News - General | Tagged: BioShock, Bioshock 2, Ken Levine, Take-two | Leave a Comment »
Posted by pogowolf on February 25, 2008
By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer
EA, the world’s largest independent video game publisher, said it was releasing details of the proposal to get the attention of Take-Two shareholders after Take-Two’s board turned down its second bid in two weeks.
The offer represents a 64 percent premium over Take-Two’s closing stock price of $15.83 on Feb. 15, the last trading day before Redwood City-based EA made its proposal. Take-Two shares closed at $17.36 Friday.
“There can be no certainty that in the future EA or any other buyer would pay the same high premium we are offering today,” EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello wrote in a letter to Take-Two released Sunday.
Riccitiello added that Take-Two’s quick acceptance of the offer would mean EA could put its marketing muscle behind the eagerly awaited release of “Grand Theft Auto IV,” set for April 29.
In its response, Take-Two called the EA offer a “highly opportunistic” attempt to take advantage of the game’s upcoming release.
“Electronic Arts’ proposal provides insufficient value to our shareholders and comes at absolutely the wrong time,” Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said in a statement Sunday.
Zelnick said EA rejected Take-Two’s offer to resume discussions of the takeover bid the day after “Grand Theft Auto IV” hit store shelves.
EA said it offered $26 per share Tuesday after Take-Two rejected a $25-per-share bid earlier this month.
The offer comes as Take-Two works to regroup following a rocky year. Shareholders threw out most of the company’s top leadership last spring over poor results as well as accounting troubles and controversy surrounding violent and sexual content in the company’s games.
Several former Take-Two executives, including Chairman and CEO Ryan A. Brant, pleaded guilty in 2007 to falsifying business records in connection with a probe into backdated stock options.
Also last year, the British Board of Film Classification refused to certify “Manhunt 2,” a gory game which received an Adults-Only rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board in the U.S.
EA, which publishes the “Madden NFL” and “FIFA Soccer” series among its popular sports franchises, has been working recently to beef up its product lineup with a wider variety of titles.
In January, the company closed its acquisitions of BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios, known for their action, adventure and role-playing games, in an $860 million deal, the largest in EA’s history.
Earlier this month, the company announced that “Spore,” the highly anticipated game from “Sims” creator Will Wright, will go on sale on the weekend of Sept. 7 amid likely stiffer competition in the $18 billion video game market.
In a deal expected to close in the first half of this year, French media and telecom giant Vivendi SA plans to combine EA’s chief rival, Activision Inc., with its own games unit to form Activision Blizzard. The merged company will own the wildly popular online game “World of Warcraft” and the “Guitar Hero” franchise.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
(AP) — The company behind the hugely popular video game “Grand Theft Auto” says it is not going to jump at a $2 billion buyout offer from Electronic Arts Inc.
Electronic Arts is undervaluing Take-Two and not factoring in the benefits of its recent turnaround efforts, Feder said in an interview. Take-Two said it is open to discussions with EA, but wants to wait until April 30, the day after the latest version of Grand Theft Auto hits store shelves.
But analysts said Take-Two may not have the luxury of time. While Take-Two wants a higher price, EA could make this bid hostile, or walk away and come back with a lower offer, they said.
“There can be no certainty that in the future EA or any other buyer would pay the premium we are proposing today,” EA’s CEO John Riccitiello said during a conference call.
“We believe our proposal is fully priced,” he said. Since “Grand Theft Auto IV” should by now be essentially complete, he added, the buyout bid “would not jeopardize the development of this incredibly important title.”
GTA has sold more than 65 million copies in the decade since the first game in the series, where players complete gritty crime missions to rise to the top.
Take-Two called the timing of EA’s unsolicited offer “opportunistic” because it is so close to the launch date of the new version of GTA. Redwood City, Calif.-based EA says it wants to act now so that it can get its marketing muscle behind GTA before the holiday season, when video game companies make most of their money.
EA’s offer represents a 64 percent premium over Take-Two’s closing stock price of $15.83 on Feb. 15, the last trading day before the company made its latest proposal, privately, to Take-Two. EA, which said it has been in talks with Take-Two on and off for about a year, offered $26 per share on Tuesday, Feb. 19, after Take-Two rejected a $25-per-share bid on Feb. 15. EA went public with the higher bid on Sunday.
Citi Investment Research analyst Brent Thill said EA “may be willing to pay slightly, but not materially, higher than its current offer.”
While much of Wall Street’s and gamers’ focus Monday was on Grand Theft Auto, Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, said it’s Take-Two’s sports business that’s the most lucrative for EA.
“The whole world seems to think this is GTA and nothing else,” he said, adding that the franchise “is the best asset for everybody except EA.”
“For EA, the best asset is sports,” he said. “And that’s why there won’t be a higher offer (from another company). No one else will value sports higher.”
EA, which owns the Madden NFL and FIFA Soccer franchises, would round out its holdings with Take-Two’s baseball, basketball and hockey titles to dominate the sports game arena.
Even if EA wins Take-Two, it isn’t clear whether the brothers who helped create “Grand Theft Auto” will stay on. Sam and Dan Houser, who lead Take-Two’s Rockstar Games label, are under contract with the company only until next year. Sam Houser could not be reached for comment Monday and Take-Two would not comment on what it said was a confidential matter.
Thill said, however, he thinks there is “considerable value” for a development studio to tap into EA’s financial, marketing and distribution resources.
Josh Resnick the co-founder and general manager of Pandemic Studios, which EA recently acquired along with BioWare Corp. for $860 million, agreed. He said Riccitiello quickly allayed concerns about the studio being able to maintain creative control and independence.
“John is one of those rare executives in the games industry who really gets it” he said.
Since taking EA’s helm a year ago, Riccitiello has reorganized the company into a “city-state model,” with four divisions and distinct, independent studios. His vision, Resnick said, has allowed studios like Pandemic to “have the freedom and flexibility to do what they need to do to make great products.”
In an interesting twist, Take-Two amended its management contract with ZelnickMedia Corp. on Feb. 14, a day before it privately rejected EA’s first offer. Feder and Chairman Strauss Zelnick are ZelnickMedia’s founding partners.
The changes, which Take-Two disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, increase the monthly management fee paid to ZelnickMedia to $208,333 from $62,500 and raise the maximum annual bonus ZelnickMedia can receive to $2.5 million from $750,000.
Take-Two’s board also granted 600,000 in restricted shares to ZelnickMedia that will vest in equal installments over three years. But if the management contract is terminated or if there is a “change in control” of the company, that is, if Take-Two is bought out, the stock awards vest “in full immediately” before such a change takes place, Take-Two said in the regulatory filing dated Feb. 14.
Feder and Zelnick took Take-Two’s helm last year after a March shareholder coup ousted most of the company’s top executives and board members over poor results, accounting troubles and controversy surrounding violent and sexual content in the company’s games.
Several former Take-Two executives, including Chairman and CEO Ryan A. Brant, pleaded guilty in 2007 to falsifying business records in connection with a probe into backdated stock options.
Shares of Electronic Arts fell $2.60, or 5.2 percent, to close at $47.14.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted in News - General | Tagged: EA, Take-two | Leave a Comment »
