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As everyone expected, the merger between Vivendi Games and Activision that led to the birth of Activision-Blizzard, the new no.1 video game publisher in the world, didn’t sit too well with, now second biggest publisher, EA Games. So they’re thinking of solutions to get back in the top spot, and acquiring Take-Two Interactive seems to be their best bet.
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As much as I hate to see juggernauts like EAtaking over ambitious, independent developers and publishers, this isthe world we live in, no matter how good you are, if you don’t have thefinancial means to compete you eventually have to accept the compromiseof an acquisition. According to many this is the fate of Take-Two, creator and publisher of titles like: GTA, BioShock, Civilization, Manhunt, Midnight Club and many more. Mike Hackey, analyst for Janco Partners, spoke with GameDailyand said that having so many popular titles, many created in-house, isin fact what makes the company such an attractive target for the evil EA empire: “Thecompany owns a large stable of owned and internally developed IPfranchises. The recent acquisition of Activision by Vivendi and BiowarePandemic by Electronic Arts, are clear examples of owned IP valuerecognition, in our opinion.â€
<o:p> </o:p> Take-Two’s financial results for2007 aren’t at all impressive, with $7.1 million losses in their lastquarter and $138.4 million for the whole year. Even though it didbetter than last year, still, things are far from being perfect. Butthis is of less importance for EA, with all the hot titles Take-Two owns, they can get the ship floating again. Not even the repeated statements of Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, saying the company is not for sale, don’t seem to be able to stop EA.
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According to Mike Hackey, Take-Two is worth well over a billion dollars, but considering they paid $855 for Bioware-Pandemic, money’s no issue for EA Games.
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I for one hope that through some miracle Take-Two keeps its independence, cause frankly it’s just them, Eidos and Ubisoft now, I don’t even want to think of what would happen if they were gone too, we all know of what questionable quality EA games can be…
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