Electronic Ubisoft Arts?

[protecyon]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1108544319

[Campaigner]

Alright...anyone know the number to a good assasin? There's E(vil)A people that needs to be killed.

[Angelspit]

I don't like this. I just went through a (successful) hostile takeover and it's not a particularly enjoyable experience. Let's show our support to the Ubisoft employees.

[jeff]

Sorry, I do not have a problem with it, I was more concerned when UBI took over the M&M titles, based on their performace with tiltes like Pool of Radiance 2. However UBI has surprised me by starting a Heroes V as quickly as they did, so I'll stay neutral on the sidelines and hope by merging correctly with a bigger company M&M's future will be more secure and not get lost in the shuffle.

[Vitirr]

Yes mergin with a bigger company like EA only could bring good news for us HOMM/M&M fans... you just have to see the wonders they've done with other good and old series like Ultima. (Yes I was ironic).

[jeff]

Never said it was all good news, I just do not make the assumption it's bad news.

[Psychobabble]

If EA takes over Ubi the PC games market is virtually a monopoly, with only Microsoft and Blizzard as major competitors (though blizzard never has a huge output so it's not a real rival) and niche/indi companies making up the rest of the field. Monopolies are not a good thing.

[Dragon Angel]

That's not really exact. Even with the EA takeover, there will be still at least four major game publishers: EA, Atari, Microsoft Game Studios, and Sierra/Vivendi (Blizzard is a Game Developer, wich publishes under Sierra), and some minor ones.

Not that the EA actions are good news, much less for the Ubisoft employees (and maybe projects), as Angelspit says, and the tendancy is scary - being really possible to imagine some kind of carter. (or cartel? I don't know the word in english, sorry)

BTW, anyone got the irony that EA was the first company founded by our old Trip Hawkings?? I suppose it has nothing to do, but is an annoying coincidence.

[PappaBrax]

Angelspit, you said you just went through a hostile (successful) takeover, what happenend?

[Vitirr]

Well perhaps not a complete monopoly, but quite close. EA will be the biggest that's for sure, and only 3 or 4 companies strong enough to keep independant, (Microsoft, Atari and Sierra), make perhaps not a monopoly but an oligopoly. And it's a monopoly in it's ideas. Those companies make all the same kind of games, and keep the same policies of "easy games" for a mass market. We could say goodbye to innovation and deep games with something more than a really great graphic engine. Not that it's only a problem of EA buying Ubi, but it's a tendency nowadays. Ion Storm, Origin, NWC, Troika, (is closing now), Interplay... all those are more or less independant companies with their own ideas and different aproach to games that are closing or have already close, (somes like NWC after being sold to a bigger company that just didn't have the vision to get the best of it). Frankly I don't like what is happening, and I see a quite dark horizon in the pc games market.

[Dragon Angel]

Of course, of course - that´s why I am talking of cartel (wich is the technical world for a "monopolistic oligopoly") in the second line.



On the other hand, I´ve to comment this (going a small group of fewer, bigger companies) is the way most of the industries take when becoming mature (and therefore, more standarised -glup-), wich is probalby what is happening with videogames now. It sad, but it´s the law of life (or the law of the market, wich more or less means the same).



Still, altough innovation will slow, I don´t think it would stagnate in "just better graphics". Games with a different twist are coming even from the established companies - just fewer, but perhaps much more polished.



And, in a second tough... we´ll have to think if "just better graphics" is what a core sector of gamers want.....

[jeff]

It is a darker day for PC games, but the possible EA take-over has little to nothing to do with it. The fact all game makers are concentrating on the console games as their cash stream has far more to do with it. As I remember 3DO in its death throws were trying to develop games for that market at the expense of its pc games. This possible take over is not going to change the way the market is moving.

[Erica Marceau]

I don't understand how one company can buy so many shares of another company and then practically force a merger without both companies having to agree to the process. What's the advantage of owning your own company and having so many shares if you don't have control over who you sell your shares to and who has a say in the company you own? The thought of waking up one day and suddenly losing control of the company I spent so many years building up is not a happy thought at all.

[ronald]

EA on Ubisoft buyout: "All options open"



Today's message from Electronic Arts CFO Warren Jenson reinforces option to buy as he tells analysts that "EA is wide open to acquisitions.”

While much of the conversation addressed general EA strategy, Jenson spent a few moments on the oft-discussed subject of acquisitions, specifically the current situation with Ubisoft. While many observers see a takeover as likely, EA is professing a methodical, if not plodding, strategy, overtly insisting that it seeks nothing more than a good return on its investment. At the same time, the company has made gestures and taken steps that leave the door open for acquisition of additional shares, and it has made moves that include seeking a seat on the company's board of directors, for example.

Today, in response to an analyst's question on where growth opportunities lie, from EA's perspective, Jenson said, "We are wide open, as we have been in the past, to acquisitions."

Moving the conversation toward Ubisoft, Jenson said, "There was a block of shares that was on the market [and] we thought it was important that we own them. And so we negotiated and were successful in reaching an agreement to acquire roughly 19, 20 percent of Ubisoft. From there, it's about keeping all of our options open. And…that's about as far as I will go."

But Jenson made it clear that one of those options might be an attempt to acquire Ubisoft, telling the audience of analysts that not only is the company "open" to acquisitions, but "we think they will continue to be a part of our growth story."



By Curt Feldman -- GameSpot

POSTED: 02/17/05 02:10 PM PST



This is what I read at gamespot, it's the newest info I think.



ronald a.k.a. Thelonious