Make sense. Not since.

Nesagwa

@skrame ☆: Nope, not a clue. I just wish this EA/T2 stuff would stop already.

Salen

@Struct09: Not really, I could've sworn time and time again that they said no and its EA whose saying "more money."

Ashkihyena

@Ashkihyena: Take Two hasn't told them "no", they've told them "more money please".

Struct09

@skrame ☆

I can't either, please enlighten me. Seriously I don't get it. :)

vx2

@Salen: You don't really understand this, do you?

skrame ☆

Damnit EA, back off already, T2's told you no time and time again, just fucking back off.

Ashkihyena

Ugh. This is getting just frustrating for me, and I'm not even trying to buy anyone.

Xeneizes

Yeah... but it sounds a bit weird to me. The FTC are checking to see if EA owning Take Two will be anti-competitive, which means they would need a fair bit of information about the business. Could it really cost that much?

CurlyJim

EA just can't take "No" for an answer. EA's trying to get the FTC to be the middleman for getting T2 & EA on a date.

FTC: Come on T2, EA's a nice guy. He's got lots of money and he's got a bunch of gaming franchises.
T2: But he's been stalking me for the last 4 months. Why don't you date EA?
FTC: Too late.
T2: ...

Salen

Sounds reasonable to me.

Sphinx

@Ashkihyena: Why would EA be saying "more money"? EA has kept their bid mostly the same, Take Two feels their stock is worth more. Take Two would sell themselves to EA in an instant if EA was offering what they wanted.

Struct09

EA just wants to "Pokemon" them. Beat on them and weaken them with legal and procedural fees until they're too weak to fight back, then swallow 'em whole! Take-two! I choose you!

fuchikoma

Long live Take 2. Sports gaming, GTA, and Bioshock must live on.

pharcotix

@fuchikoma:

Yeah, that's what it seems like. This is getting absurd. I wish EA would just back the fuck off. To me, the only reason why they want Take 2 is so that they can finally have their monopoly on sports games.

dead_red_eyes

So... what illegal stock practices has T2 done THIS time that they don't want the FTC finding out about?

Wonder if that's the real reason management has been so against the deal.

GnatB

ea: All your I.P. are belong to us.
t2: huh? no. fuck off.
ea: Resistance is futile.
t2: seriously no.
ea: I'll ask again in a month.

James, just James

@Lazlo: No, the FTC is involved to make sure the deal is legal and does not absolutely destroy competitiveness within the industry. The FTC does not have a stake in either the bid succeeding or failing. They are simply observing it, and potentially authorizing the deal if it was to go through.

zebber

Isn't EA doing this kind of the equivilant of having your big sister fight for you in high school?

Lazlo

@dead_red_eyes:
TBH I didn't really hate EA before this. I've programmed, and they were known to abuse coders, but that's really common and they'd gotten better. The only games I played by them were pretty much Need for Speed and Criterion-made Burnout.

But now they're behaving not only childishly, but as a giant quasi-monopolistic bully. There's no way they're a monopoly, but they're so huge and powerful they can pretty much kill whoever's in the way and this dogged determination to own or break T2 is really pissing me off.

fuchikoma

@Salen: @vx2:

Sorry it took so long. I only check back every few hours.

The FTC has to approve any merger or acquisition, to make sure that no monopoly or other uncompetitive practice will take place. This applies to Take Two, just as it would for any other company.

To investigate this, the FTC obtains financial records and other reports from involved companies. They ask for them, and involved companies normally turn them over. Take Two however, says that the FTC is asking for too much information.

Their refusal may be because they have shady practices going on, as others have suggested. It may be a delay tactic, so that they can court other companies than EA. And it may actually be that the FTC is asking for too much.

EA really has nothing to do with the FTC court hearing. The only thing they are doing is continuing to pursue Take Two. In doing this, they make the FTC make a decision whether the acquisition would get approval. The want to get this out of the way now, so that if they drop their offer and come back later, they won't have to get FTC approval again.

Hopefully this clears it up. If not, ask more. I'll try to check back a little faster.

skrame ☆

@Struct09: EA's saying more money cause like what was mentioned, they want the monopoly on sports games, plus the GTA games to boot I'm sure.

Ashkihyena

@Elemence: Use Kotaku's tag filtering, similar to what they suggested back when every post was about GTA4.

zebber

damn im like sick of this...

Elemence

@zebber:
Sure. But as it stands, EA spent forever going $25? No? Ok, $26? No? How about $26? Alright, I have an offer you CAN refuse... $26? Well, that didn't work... $26! C'mon... it's $26 or $26, but you WILL accept our offer... for $26.

Which doesn't seem like much, but so far it's cost T2 over $5,000,000 to resist. There's such a thing as taking no for an answer and at this point EA isn't even showing decency or sense. Now they're just harassing T2 until it costs less to give in and be bought for under-value than it does to fight the constant nagging.

fuchikoma

@skrame ☆: Nah, its all good, Skrame. Makes enough sense, although frankly, I still think this is T2's way of telling EA to go take a flying leap.

Salen

@fuchikoma: In this case though, T2 isn't really trying to get out of being dominated. They just want more money per share. If EA, in a fit of insanity, suddenly doubled their bid, T2 (or their shareholders) would jump on it immediately.

This whole thing is less like the "good guy vs bad guy" that people like to think it is, and more like haggling with a shopkeeper over the price of something.

zebber

The more I hear about this story, the less and less I like T2. I'm not saying EA is in the right, but T2 keeps coming across like it's run by childish, money-grubbing bastards.

Oh wait. It is run by childish, money-grubbing bastards.

People don't seem to realize that.

antialias02

I don't understand. I thought one purpose of the FTC was to restrict mergers...they seem to want to facilitate this. But given that the US government will do whatever its corporate overlords tell it to do, I could find this scenario believable.

RonJeremy4Pres

@antialias02: Funny, I think T2 is totally in the right. They've told EA time and time again "no" and yet, like the Borg, EA wants to assimilate T2 into their collective.

Ugh, if EA does aquire T2, I'm sure we'll see that stupid ass SecuriRom on all the GTA games and everything else that T2 owns.

Then of course theres the fact that EA's patches tend to break more then they fix.

Ashkihyena

@fuchikoma:

Wow. Has it really cost T2 $5,000,000 to defend itself? That's just nuts. There has to be a point where someone steps in and says, "Alright, that's enough EA. You gave it a shot and you failed. Try again in a few years." That won't be the case I suppose.

Quilt

@Struct09: The hell they would.

also, FUCK OFF EA. kthxbai.

~xoaks~

@Ashkihyena: Man, I am compelled to comment even though the post is old enough no one will notice. What a sad personal state of affairs.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that T2 has been behind games that used frightening copy protection. Remember Bioshock?

zebber

@fuchikoma:
Ya, but is it really under-value? Whether the stock is high right now because of EA or GTA4, it's not going to stay forever, especially considering Take Two's past, all EA wants is their money's worth. If they're thinking of a long-term investment, which any buy-out should, then they'd be stupid not to wait for the price to go down.

I think the merger would be bad for the industry (especially if the developers stick with it), don't get me wrong, I'm not what you call a fan of monopolies, and especially not EA, but T2 is a overvalued publisher, if anything, and they submit themselves into that illusion more than anyone.

StarStabbedMoon

Sounds to me like a "What financial report? What do you mean records of losses" etc. etc.

Spiderbait

@Quilt:
According to Kotaku, $5.3M in legal fees, MOST of which went to fighting EA.
[kotaku.com]

@StarStabbedMoon:
I actually checked the stocks today and they're in the $26-27 range right now.

To me it's less about the economics of it, and more about Take Two and their shareholders telling EA "no no no no NO NO NO NO NO FUCK OFF, I SAID NO!" and EA coming back with "Ok, then how about what you just refused? Do you want it yet?" every time. At this point it just comes across as EA abusing their massive pool of resources to beat T2 into submission.

fuchikoma

@zebber:
Hmm, well if that's the case why is Take-Two playing hardball with them? I know they claim not to be, but they must be doing something to give people that impression. If what you said is true then the FTC should be like, "Hey EA take yo shit and leave." Which would be good for Take Two, right? I'm no good at business but that seems counter-productive.

Lazlo

Unfortunately EA simply wants to get rid on the competition in the process, that is why they are not raising their offer. Imagine a world without 2K sports, the only thing you could buy would be EA Sports, remember that Peter Moore (FROM MICROSOFT) is now heading EA Sports... Does it seem like a tactic Bill Gates would be proud of? You bet ! Kill and/or buy the competition away so you can become the de facto standard and then any newcomer will really have a hard time starting a similar sports game.

FredQC

@Lazlo: Because like I said, the FTC doesn't care which way the deal goes. They're only there to prevent illegal transactions and mergers. T2 is "playing hardball" because they don't feel the need to cough up everything the FTC is asking for in terms of financial/corporate information, documents, history, etc. T2 is either covering up something they don't want the federal government to know about (which I think is unlikely), or they simply don't want to spend the time and money to collect and share all their information.

There's also the possibility that filings with the FTC are made into public record (though I'm not certain on that). That would make any company reluctant to give up certain pieces of information, so it could be T2 trying to avoid public disclosures.

Personally, I'm guessing it's just that they don't feel the government needs certain information, and are therefore refusing to turn it over. Probably nothing malicious or malevolent, just a matter of financial privacy.

zebber

@Ashkihyena: I think you should look deeper into this situation. What you are saying here doesn't even make sense. Yes, EA wants Take Two's IPs, which is why they are bidding on Take Two. What you don't seem to understand is that Take Two wants to be purchased, but they feel EA is undervaluing them.

@Ashkihyena: And what are you talking about here? Take Two already uses SecuROM without EA's influence. See BioShock.

The "monopoly" on the sports genre is potentially a bad thing, but it really seems a number of people fail to understand the business aspect here. This is not a David and Goliath situation, Take Two would sell themselves in an instant if EA was offering what they felt was enough money.

Struct09

@Struct09: I still doubt it, and besides, so far I haven't heard of any of the GTA games on PC with SecuriRom, and if EA did get their grubby little mits on it, the SecuriRom would only get worse.

Those sorry SOBs better be glad that they got rid of that 10 day deal with the PC Mass Effect and Spore.

Ugh, I hate EA, and yet, I play their games though, what a delimma.

Ashkihyena

@fuchikoma

The problem is if they do that AFTER they bougth them.

Althougth (in my mind) GTA4 has not supperior quality, i think it will be better for the feel of the TakeTwo franchaises not to sell them to EA.

I heard to much bad stuff about big companys and how they threat little companys that just want to make their creative stuff.

fELIXADER

it doesn't really matter T2 is gonna be another EA subsidary. Gamers can get ready for the suck. they can get ready for the axe billboards in GTA, real advetisments on the radio, and the infamously terrible EA trax. Face it folks. Consumers lose. competition dwidles. we can only trust each other now.

Xtreme_Hindu_Cow

EA is a hungry hungry hippo. I think it'd be great for everyone at T2 to take the heaps of cash they're raking in from GTA4, sell T2, then go start another company. Leave EA with franchises that are full of fail because the creators left, meanwhile the new company starts what looks like "me too" games i.e. Saint's Row...only they're good.

afrosheen

I'm still curious as to how much T2 has made so far from sales of GTAIV. With such a successful launch and following sales I doubt that EA can afford to buy them much longer.

Ratfoot_Revived

i dont understand any of that much, but i just hope T2 doesnt end up getting bought by ea

Juggalo333