Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

[RaychelSnr]

Want to know what's going to happen with Take-Two if they are bought by EA? The best way to predict the future is to look at the past and Operation Sports' Chase Becotte did just that. Check out his latest article discussing past companies EA has acquired and their fates:

"Back in 1982, Electronic Arts started out as a pioneering publishing house lead by founder and CEO Trip Hawkins. Fast forward 26 years and well, a lot has changed to say the least. Trip Hawkins left the company in 1991 to start the doomed 3DO console; in the same year Don Mattrick's old company, Distinctive Software, became the first major acquisition by EA -- Mattrick later became president of EA, and is presently the Senior VP of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, which happens to be Peter Moore's former job."

[BlyGilmore]

Re: Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

very good read. not sure if anybody else notices a trend there.

while i'm into sports gaming i'm also an MMO player. i can say the buzz from Mythic over their Warhammer game has been less than stellar since EA bought them. In fact the game was supposed to be released before Christmas and has been constantly pushed back.

So far all signs are pointing toward that being another classic EA failure - but time will tell.

[Lintyfresh85]

Where have I seen all of that before... seems so familiar.

[DaveDQ]

They kept several of the names, just added EA into it. The article is informative, but I don't think it's an indicator as to what EA will do with Take Two, specifically, 2K Sports. I'm not saying this exact article is claiming this, but we've got to lose this notion that EA is deliberately "evil" and wishes only to destroy the gaming industry. They have released some quality titles as of late.

[ChaseB]

I'm not trying to pass any judgments I simply listed the purchases and what has happened with them to the present. If I was trying to make it an editorial I would point out that Bullfrog, Maxis, and Westwood were probably mismanaged, but now recently DICE, Criterion, Black Box, and now BioWare/Pandemic are being handled better...among other angles I could have taken.

[mgoblue]

Re: Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

I'm not trying to pass any judgments I simply listed the purchases and what has happened with them to the present. If I was trying to make it an editorial I would point out that Bullfrog, Maxis, and Westwood were probably mismanaged, but now recently DICE, Criterion, Black Box, and now BioWare/Pandemic are being handled better...among other angles I could have taken.

Another thing to ponder would be if these smaller developers can even survive alone nowadays, compared to the early 90's. The cost of creating a game has drastically skyrocketed, and even if a company makes a great game it might not be enough to survive. Not every company can be Rockstar and stumble on the GTA series. Buyouts happen in business all the time because the smaller companies hit on something big but are usually unable to take things to the next level.

[ChaseB]

Right, and yea it is getting tougher because stock holders want to see the growth as the years progress, and so sometimes these studios just can't meet the expansion. I assume at some point you reach a tipping point where it's self sustaining but still, I think like movies, games might just have to go down that 4-5 major labels route that movies are now in, since the industry just keeps exploding more and more expansion keeps happening.

[Lintyfresh85]

You mean all that info in the article wasn't lifted straight from Wikipedia? They may disagree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_arts

[ChaseB]

Unfortunately no, it wasn't all lifted from Wiki.

[DLaren]

Re: Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

very good read. not sure if anybody else notices a trend there.

while i'm into sports gaming i'm also an MMO player. i can say the buzz from Mythic over their Warhammer game has been less than stellar since EA bought them. In fact the game was supposed to be released before Christmas and has been constantly pushed back.

So far all signs are pointing toward that being another classic EA failure - but time will tell.

I'm also a fan of the MMO genre and Warhammer is definitely getting it's share of hype within the MMO community; from what I've read, most people on MMO-themed forums have said that they're more excited about Warhammer than they are about Age of Conan or the next WOW expansion. I'd expect EA to really heat-up the advertising campaign when this game nears its release.

I also view the delay of Warhammer as a good thing because it indicates to me that EA isn't rushing Mythic to get the game out of the door before it's ready...But as you said, time will tell.

[ChaseB]

Re: Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

I'm also a fan of the MMO genre and Warhammer is definitely getting it's share of hype within the MMO community; from what I've read, most people on MMO-themed forums have said that they're more excited about Warhammer than they are about Age of Conan or the next WOW expansion. I'd expect EA to really heat-up the advertising campaign when this game nears its release.

I also view the delay of Warhammer as a good thing because it indicates to me that EA isn't rushing Mythic to get the game out of the door before it's ready...But as you said, time will tell.

Yea I'm with you on the delay part. I've heard they increased the amount of people working on the game, and release that to gain some market share from games like WoW you need to come out strong. I've also read from one major publisher that it would take like a $1 billion initial investment to really compete with WoW, which is crazy to think about.

[ChaseB]

Re: Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

Did you actually read the page I linked? I'm pretty sure you'll see that's exactly what you did. Copying a list and adding commentary to each piece of information does not equal writing an article.

There's no reason not to use Wiki... but if you're going to lift it, at least cite it.

I honestly didn't use that Wiki page so I don't know what else to say there. I did use some Wiki pages as well as other sites etc but just didn't source them within the article because it was an accumulation and pick and pull more than a direct thing and plus it's common public knowledge.

If you'd like I can pull up a bunch of the sites. Do you want me to post them in here?

[ChaseB]

Re: Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

Actually just yea, here's some of the links. I used the CVG piece below as a primer of sorts and went from there. Looking back using the EA Wiki page probably would have been a lot easier I'm surprised I didn't think of it. I don't claim this is the meatiest or freshest piece, I simply tried to add a bit more to the acquisitions where applicable.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=183194

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate...gn_id=rss_null

http://info.ea.com/news/pr/pr454.htm

http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/pdf2html.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.info.ea.com%2Fnews%2Fpr%2Fpr508.pdf&images=yes

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp?option=G&V=3&id=188017

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Mattrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_Systems

http://info.ea.com/news/pr/pr787.pdf

http://kotaku.com/gaming/ea-grabs-tw...mic-309937.php

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...24/ai_16226827