Peter Suciu

EA Take Over
March 20, 2008

Software giant Electronic Arts is moving forward with its hostile takeover of Take-Two Interactive, a move that EA chief executive John Riccitiello says could be good for Rockstar and its hugely popular Grand Theft Auto brand. The contention is that EA could provide better distribution for the highly anticipated game, which arrives April 29.

The level of smugness from the EA camp also seems to be at an all-time high considering the things that are being reported around the world. When speaking to The New York Times last week Riccitiello was quoted as saying “We, in many ways, represent a white knight.” However, reports GameDaily this feeling wasn’t shared by various industry analysts, who ask why Rockstar might even need a white knight in the first place!

Of course it could be the EA head honcho means he’s a white knight for EA’s investors! In speaking to the BBC, Riccitiello made it very clear that the desire for EA was to obtain Grand Theft Auto, and in the process snag three other top studios including Irrational, makers of last year’s surprise hit Bioshock; Firaxis, the studio founded by Civilization creator Sid Meier; and finally Visual Concepts, the makers of various sports titles under the 2K Games banner.

It is easy to see how these top studios could easily fit into the EA fold, especially given how the company acquired Maxis, Will Wright’s studio where he created The Sims and is working on the upcoming Spore; and Westwood, the creators behind the Command & Conquer series. Additionally, EA has snapped up other studios when games it published became breakout hits – notably this includes DICE, the makers of the Battlefield series. All of these studios have done very well as part of the greater EA family, and there is no reason to think that Rockstar wouldn’t also thrive.

EA after all was one of the first publishers to treat its developers like actual rock stars. Anyone who remembers the early days of Electronic Arts in the 1980s can recall the “album cover” packaging for its various computer games.

But on the flip side – to use another music metaphor – EA’s potential acquisition of Take Two could leave those Visual Concepts games in a lurch. EA Sports has most of the major – and not so major – sports covered very well already. So while Riccitiello may say that acquiring Take Two isn’t about eliminating the main competitor for sports titles, namely the 2K Sports brand, it is hard not to see that this would be a happy consequence for EA Sports.

More importantly the question that no one seems to be asking is whether EA is even making the right move in putting this much effort (not to mention money) to obtain GTA. While the game has been extremely successful, and could be credited for a lot of the PlayStation 2’s success, it hasn’t exactly been a brand without controversy – the type of controversy that doesn’t exactly make investors warm and happy inside. Would EA have to monitor the development more closely to ensure that there is no “Hot Coffee” style content that could result in the game being pulled from shelves?

Likewise, with numerous GTA clones out there, including EA’s own The Godfather, as well as Scarface and most notably Saint’s Row, it would seem that the original car jacking brand has been somewhat diminished. There is no reason to think that GTA won’t be a hit, but will it be as much as a hit as the past games – given that early buzz is that it is more of the same?

Still, EA’s takeover of Take Two makes sense… for EA. The company would acquire GTA, along with those other significant studios and their subsequent properties, and at the same time manage to put down the main competition in the sports arena. So EA and chief John Riccitiello can rightfully claim to be the white knight, but even in fairytales worthy of a video game the dragon probably didn’t think the white knight to be much of a hero!

Posted by Peter Suciu on March 20, 2008 | Comments (0)