electronic arts -

EA and Take-Two Stock Falls FastEA and Take-Two Stock Falls Fast

September 15, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 12:58 pm

It’s official, EA has given up their talks with Take-Two and, as a result, the stock of both companies is falling like a stone. While gamers may cheer knowing the Grand Theft Auto and 2K Sports product lines will continue to compete with EA products, share holders are doing a WTF?

Take-Two has had its share of financial difficulties, but nothing shakes up a stock more than a break in discussions when the words acquisition have been spoken. It causes uncertainty and lack of understanding on the part of the game industry and share holders. EA’s stock dropped 2.7% upon opening this morning but has begun to stablize as it’s clear EA isn’t in any financial peril from this breakup in discussion.

Take-Two’s stock, however, is in epic free fall with a 25% decline since the discussions ended. One theory is that, “is taking a huge beating as everyone and their mother tries desperately to sell the shares the figured EA was going to to buy.” (kotaku)

As the game industry gets more competitive, builds bigger bank-roll and becomes a staple entertainment icon there is always more business savvy people getting into the game trying to make a fast buck. In this case, the shareholders obviously aren’t pushing for Take-Two’s future decisions or product launches — this is the reaction of business folks trying to make money.

There is huge risk with block buster 100-million dollar titles and all the crazy hype involved with some of the biggest games in history. They break sales records, smoke box-office numbers and bring new gamers into the industry but it’s all at risk when money gets involved. One bad move and a company making a title like GTA can find themselves in financial peril.

With risk comes reward, but failure is always sneaking up around the corner so watch out!

GTA IV: 46th Best-Selling Game In AugustGTA IV: 46th Best-Selling Game In August

September 12, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:09 am

Like a washed up superstar, Grand Theft Auto IV continues to drop in NPD figures. This Axl Rose of video games came on strong and sputtered out into oblivion with barely a notice, leaving the spotlight and all hype behind it. This drastic fall may hurt any negotiations “behind closed doors” with Electronic Arts and their constant attempts to take over Take-Two.

Prior to the release of GTA IV we, in our gaming podcast, predicted a huge launch would up the anti against the bids on Take-Two from EA but things didn’t work out exactly as we expected. Although the game has sold 8.5-million units, it might not add any new bargaining power to the back door negotiations.

A game company is only as good as their games. A hit title which dies out quick helps financially guide the future of the company; technically the future isn’t so bright. With the title quickly falling off the top game sales charts we may never see it hit record sales figures to match that of smaller titles. Having one hot title every four years that “breaks records” for a week isn’t a strong weapon against a low bid from a larger publisher.

While EA may not have any record setting “one week” sales titles yet, they do have a consistently strong set of titles which stick on the charts for months with newer titles arriving to take their spot when they fade. The same can be said for a few other notable publishers, Activision and Ubisoft. To survive in the hot game industry, especially with market downturns, one must have a cycle of great games to publish throughout the year consistently year-over-year in order to provide evidence of their financial stability.

Assuming the bid won’t raise for GTA IV, where does that leave Take-Two? Perhaps Take-Two is better off under the umbrella of Electronic Arts after all. The waters are getting more hostile in the industry as companies compete for gamers attention with 100-million dollar titles and casual games and game consoles (read: Wii) start to build a whole new none-gamer-style momentum.

Is Take-Two better off under the EA brand?

Spore DRM, Less Than TransparentSpore DRM, Less Than Transparent

September 8, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 4:34 pm

It turns out Electronic Art’s Spore has some digital rights management (DRM) under the hood that’s irking a few video game players. We use the term “few” lightly, as game players use their voices to be heard and let them ring loud! Taking a gander at Amazon.com’s listing of Spore and you’ll see 797 customer reviews with an average rating of 1-star.

What’s the problem with the DRM? It’s almost easier to ask what isn’t the problem with the DRM in Spore. First, it’s intrusive, install Spore more than three times and you’ll have to call Electronic Arts to have them re-activate the game. Are we renting games now?

To re-activate your game with one more additional install will require you to give proof of purchase, so the comments say and, pretty much, you’re assumed to be pirating the product immediately. That might be over-reacting, a bit, but not really much considering the limitations on the product.

What if the DRM solution goes wrong? What if the game cannot access the Internet upon installation? There are plenty of what-if scenarios one can play out when they find their precious $50.00 game is phoning home to protect itself from you and your habits.

“This caused EA to remove the requirement that the game authenticate online every ten days, changing it to authentication whenever new content was added to the title. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be enough, and the limit on installations is what gamers are now finding most heinous. Review-bombing Amazon is a particularly nasty way of getting the point across as well; casual gamers who aren’t aware of this campaign may not bother to read the content of the reviews and only assume the game isn’t very good.” (arstechnica)

No doubt all the negative press will result in a full on revolt, having gamers who’ve not purchased the title ding it with a 1-star to prove a point, why not? How else shall we fight “the man” and their unholy DRM solutions.

Oddly enough, you can find the game pirated already across the Internet, what has this proven? The game was found on torrent sites before it’s release, already cracked. It’s said they’re using a Sony DRM solution, a known DRM solution, which means hackers whom have already cracked this protection before had it un-shelled in a matter of hours.

What did the DRM get Electronic Arts but a PR nightmare and a bunch of people stealing it off the Internet now that they know it’s already available? Lot’s of publicity for very little gain; imagine the reviews and comments had they chosen to go without a DRM solution and be a pioneer of future technological solutions.Sure, it would be on a torrent site within hours… but it was anyway.

Imagine a Spore Engine, Might Be RealImagine a Spore Engine, Might Be Real

September 5, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 3:36 pm

Electronic Arts may be considering the Spore system as an “Engine” for licensing to other developers to build RPG’s, action games, web-based games and many other options. Much like ID Software and Epic Games have done, this could be a build system for new creative additions to the industry.

Considering the amount of crazy Spore mini-games that have hit the street in the last few months, it seems possible EA’s already using this technique in-house to build hype and extension to the Spore product line. Usually such engines are licensed by smaller developers (smaller compared to Electronic Arts anyway) and not a big publisher such as EA.

Frank Gibeau, president of Electronic Arts’ Games Label says, “What’s so beautiful about Spore is that it’s extremely malleable, you could add RPG or action, you could take it to different platforms, like (Web-page) flash games, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii” (kotaku)

While EA did use the word “you could” they may be referencing the fact that “one could do it, if they worked at EA.” Electronic Arts wants to win the battle of the publishers, no doubt, and they continue to grow in size; would they let loose the Spore engine on outside developers? Or, would they keep it as an in-house engine for their own groups to leverage in future projects?

Command and Conquer: Red Alert – Free!Command and Conquer: Red Alert – Free!

September 2, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 8:47 pm

It is the 13th anniversary of the Command & Conquer Series, Red Alert, and Electronic Arts is giving away the original C&C: Red Alert as a download for free. Holy crap, how neat is that?

This is also a great marketing technique, Red Alert 3 arrives soon, so this will help you keep it fresh in your head prior to the new release. Maybe this also gives new gamers the ability to experience the old title before heading into the third revision.

“Download both the Allies and Soviets discs (each disc contained the single-player campaign for its respective faction), but the files are actual ISO images of the CDs themselves. That means that in order to play them, you’ll either need to burn the ISO images onto a blank disc, or use a Virtual CD program to load them.” (1up)

The free Red Alert game download will run on XP/98/Me/95 but no official Vista support. Now, you’ve got a chance to play Red Alert… what about Red Alert 2? If you pre-order Red Alert 3 you’ll get the second in the series for free as well- genius!

There is really no reason not to take advantage of this awesome deal if you’ve never played a Red Alert game and want to see how the foundation of early RTS style games started. Although this isn’t the first C&C in the game franchise it launched a few new advancements on the original C&C title so you’re really getting an RTS based on learning experiences from the first, at no price.

Heck, maybe we’ll download it again just because we can! Excellent.

EA’s Tiberium Delayed, Big TimeEA’s Tiberium Delayed, Big Time

July 30, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:26 am

Electronic Arts is (was?) building a first-person-shooter based on the Command and Conquor series and was set to release on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The original title was originally slated for 2008 and now has been pushed to EA’s fiscal year 2009 or 20010.

The game was not shown off at E3, which is a bit weird, but considering other titles that didn’t make an E3 announcement (halo) perhaps this isn’t too out of the usual. Perhaps the game design was harder to tackle than originally intended? The only thing we know is that it’s slipped a good deal of time from the original date.

The debate is still up on if we need yet another first-person-shooter title, even if it’s based on the C&C series. It seems they’re using a popular series to launch another FPS genre game, will it stand alone as an innovative title or simply be another FPS title skinned with C&C character models?

(Thanks, 1up)

Battle of the Mega Powers: EA Wants Take-TwoBattle of the Mega Powers: EA Wants Take-Two

July 21, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 3:57 pm

We’re already looking at the results of an Activision Vivendi union and now Electronic Arts is slowly working towards taking over Take-Two. Activision Blizzard is larger than that of EA but would the Take-Two buy-out grow EA into the number one publisher once again?

For gamers, it’s changing the map of the industry. We grew up with many of these seemingly big companies but their all clamoring together to make the next big mega-power. While they struggle for ultimate domination we, the gamers, are going to either benefit from the competition or become victims, or perhaps a little of both.

Let’s assume EA and Take-Two form one entity, similar to the the Destructicons forming “Devastator,” they can reign hell upon the earth and anyone under their mighty fist shall perish! That might be a bit of an exaggeration but it’s safe to assume they’ll wield mighty power, more than ever before and their epic foe will be Activision Blizzard and, perhaps, Ubisoft. In a battle for sales and consumer acceptance the companies will be willing to out do each other at every step with huge funds at their disposal.

As a consumer, competition is a great way to produce innovation, technological advancements and excitement in the industry. These giant development houses are only this large because we’ve given them our hard earned money in return for entertaining video game titles. World of Warcraft is a major player in sucking money from our wallets in a consistent, addictive, manner while Guitar Hero explores new possibilities in music and rhythm gaming and controller accessories.

(more…)

SimAnimals, The Next Gen Black & WhiteSimAnimals, The Next Gen Black & White

July 14, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 6:47 pm

Electronic Arts has announced SimAnimals, a game where you play the godlike hand and control the lifestyle of over 60 animals. In the game you’ll play the role of a disembodied hand which moves around and life animals, pick flowers and interact with the environment much like a past Lionhead Studios game: Black and White.

EA’s not exactly being the most creative with this Wii and DS game based on the sounds of it so far, as it clones a lot of the features in Black and White, including how “animals react” when you treat them a specific way. However, we’ve not had this style of game on the Wii or DS, both very “touchy” in methodology.

Black and White had the touch sensitive control scheme using tactile feedback with the mouse implemented with Immersion technology. This brings the style of gameplay to a new level, but nothing we’ve heard thus far makes us think originality. Cute and cool, perhaps but it’s nothing new. Of course, who said it had to be new?

We know old gaming concepts sell well at this point!