EA buys 20% of UbiSoft

[Fletch]

3 day weekend!!!!!

[mikezilla]

Hey Klein, do you have stock options with Ubi? Because right now your shares are going up. You might want to sell a few off and build yourself a financial coushin for the... you know... impending doom.

Oddly enough I think you hit on something you didn't mean to. In certain business circles it has become a practice to buy a big share of a company to artificially drive the stock up (like today) and get people to sell it off at a higher rate. This leaves many many many open shares to then quickly snatch up. The worst thing any ubi stock holder could do is sell right now.

I think we'll be getting a statement from Ubisoft and Yves very soon regarding this and their strategy, especially concerning the stock holders and what they need to know about this.

Yves aint going down without a fight.

Hostile takeovers 101.

[Mazy]

fuck D:!

this is horrible

fucking EA bastards

[Fletch]

Brothers In Arms: Coming this Spring from EA Games!

shudder

[kleinluka]

Medal of Honor: Road to Hill 30

[FrieChamp]

JOIN THE DARK SIDE AS LONG AS YOU CAN !!!

Na seriously, I don't like what's happening there. If EA manages to buy out the entire competition, this would neither be a good thing for gamers nor a good thing for developers.

[Fletch]

Medal of Honor: Road to Hill 30

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Minos]

Games will have no soul from now. The dark age in video-games has just started.

[Izuno]

Hey Klein, do you have stock options with Ubi? Because right now your shares are going up. You might want to sell a few off and build yourself a financial coushin for the... you know... impending doom.

Oddly enough I think you hit on something you didn't mean to. In certain business circles it has become a practice to buy a big share of a company to artificially drive the stock up (like today) and get people to sell it off at a higher rate. This leaves many many many open shares to then quickly snatch up. The worst thing any ubi stock holder could do is sell right now.

I think we'll be getting a statement from Ubisoft and Yves very soon regarding this and their strategy, especially concerning the stock holders and what they need to know about this.

Yves aint going down without a fight.

Hostile takeovers 101.

also of note...you don't really buy 20% of a competitor unless you are planning on acquiring the whole thing one day. It's a sort of "try before you buy" type consolidiation strategy. In a competitive industry like ours it probably means EA will (1) try to buy the majority stake within a year or (2) dump it completely (3) restructure (aka dissolve) Ubi and possibly keep Ubi's brand as a "division" of EA.

The next six months of the EA-Ubi relationship are critical. One thing of note, this may be EA's bid to get into "light" M-rated games like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon series. (As opposed to "heavy" M rated games like GTA, The Punisher, etc)

[zaphod]

Games will have no soul from now. The dark age in video-games has just started.

just started?

[Fletch]

EA announces this right after they get unexpectedly blocked out of a buyout of Digital Illusions (DICE). Their initial stock purchase of DICE? 19 percent. hmmmmm

[Marcos]

Sad news.

Well, EA hasn't got any power over ubi yet. They probbly just want to make profit out of it. But, if they buy their way up to 51%, it's time to run away!

[Fletch]

Sad news.

Well, EA hasn't got any power over ubi yet. They probbly just want to make profit out of it. But, if they buy their way up to 51%, it's time to run away!

This is (IMHO) a backdoor way to acquire lucrative liscences and brands. If this goes through, EA will control most of the top flight action game series (except for the id games). They'll have all the Rainbox Six, Splinter Cell, James Bond, Prince of Persia, Brothers In Arms, Medal of Honor, and Battlefield 1942. Those are all series that are going to have gauranteed success rates on all games, plus expansion packs, plus online content, etc etc.

Add that to all these other franchises they own: Sims, Sim City, Harry Potter, Need for Speed, Command and Conquer, Ultima, Rayman, Myst, Far Cry, etc. Plus all the EA Sports and EA Sports BIG games.

If this goes through, EA becomes the 800 lbs gorilla in the corner. They control the majority of big game franchises. Every handware manufacturer will have to go through EA if they want their console to survive. It also means EA will be able to then pressure the hardware side when it comes to designing and releasing consoles.

Think of it this way: Nintendo has a poor rep for working with 3rd party publishers (i.e. EA). Let's say Nintendo doesn't play ball very much with EA. Maybe this means maybe EA won't put out Madden for the first year. Or maybe they won't have any launch title games. Nintendo struggles for a while, then gives EA a better deal about tech liscensing. EA then ports it's games quicker, and releases more for the new console. Nintendo is now liscensing cheaper than it wants and had to endure months of stale game sales. EA got to save of publishing costs and gets a better deal in the end. It's all about leverage, and EA is buying it a chunk at a time.

[FrieChamp]

EA announces this right after they get unexpectedly blocked out of a buyout of Digital Illusions (DICE). Their initial stock purchase of DICE? 19 percent. hmmmmm

...and they just offered the DICE stockholders a completely redefined deal, this thing isn't over yet.

[Fletch]

EA announces this right after they get unexpectedly blocked out of a buyout of Digital Illusions (DICE). Their initial stock purchase of DICE? 19 percent. hmmmmm

...and they just offered the DICE stockholders a completely redefined deal, this thing isn't over yet.

It pretty much is unless EA ponies up way more money. The deal to completely absorb DICE requires 90% approval by stock holders. There are two groups of DICE stock holders block thing. One owns 12% and the other has 16%. EA's recent restructuring it was to extend the deadline, but didn't provide any significant increase in funding. Neither of those groups is going to budge until EA raises the buy price to reflect how much money DICE is going to rake in for BF2 and subsequent add on packs