Take-Two Turns Down $2 Billion Offer
By: John Vinson
The video game world used to be so simple. It used to be the only news that mattered was game releases, console releases, and finding out just how long you had to wait for those releases. These days it seems like the business side of video games has over taken the actual importance of the games themselves. This is most readily apparent by the recent offer made by EA to purchase Take-Two for $2 billion.
This past year we have seen all kinds of crazy business decisions go down. First, there was the official split between Bungie and Microsoft, which left many XBOX 360 owners wondering about the future of Halo. Next was the purchase of Pandemic Studios made by EA for the sum of $860 million. What is alittle different about the Take-Two offer, is that the information was made public even though the deal didn’t go through.
One evident reason that Take-Two is holding off on EA’s offer is the release of their title Grand Theft Auto 4. Grand Theft Auto has been a smash hit ever since the series’ original release of Grand Theft Auto 3. It’s not a mystery to see that Take-Two is wanting to hold out until the game launches so that the value of the company will increase. Many analysts predict this could come back to hurt them, because EA might not make another offer for awhile.
If this deal were to go through, the sports genre would be effected most. EA and Take-Two have been battling for dominance of the sports genre for quite sometime. Many fans were outraged when EA bought the third party rights to distribute NFL games. Then Take-Two turned around and bought the third party rights for MLB games. The competition is fierce, and makes developers put everything they have into their sports games to sway the consumers. So if EA’s buyout were to go through you could kiss the competition goodbye.
I guess all we can do is hope for the simpler days to return once again.