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The Story Of Doodle Jump: Brotherly Love And Digital Snacks EA is merging their two top roleplaying game developers, BioWare and Mythic, into one massive RPG group, with BioWare’s co-founder Ray Muzyka taking the lead and Mythic’s Mark Jacobs taking a powder.
Back in January, Tecmo and Koei officially merged. The merger created a joint holding company called Koei Tecmo Holdings as of April 1, when the new financial year starts.
It’s official. Tecmo and Koei announced today that the two companies have merged, giving birth through stock transfer to a joint holding company called Koei Tecmo Holdings as of April 1.
The planned merger between Japanese game developers Tecmo and Koei stumbles a bit today, as Tecmo’s 2nd largest stockholder hits the more information button.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal offered Disney the following sage advice: “Buy Electronic Arts.” According to the WSJ’s “Heard on the Street” column, Disney might be doing just that.
Whoa, I didn’t even know SouthPeak Interactive swung that way, but apparently they’ve been Gamecock-hungry for quite some time and aren’t too proud to pay for it. SouthPeak today announces that they have acquired wild-and-crazy Gamecock Media Group. ‘Cock head Mike Wilson swells with excitement. “We are thrilled to be joining forces with SouthPeak to continue to bring great original titles from independent developers to market with a stronger sales and distribution reach,” said Mike Wilson, CEO of Gamecock. “We have followed each other’s progress closely over the last two years, and combining our team with theirs results in a very strong and well-rounded force in the market.”
There are perks to being a corporate big-shot. Free parking spaces, for one. Executive bathrooms are another. As are sexy assistants, immunity from prosecution for possession of cocaine and (hopefully) an understanding wife. Oh, and MASSIVE CORPORATE PAYOUTS. As part of the merger deal between their company and Vivendi Games, Activision execs Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly will receive between them around $US 40 million in cash, shares and benefits. That’s just between the two of them. Well, them and their understanding wives.
GameDaily tests the raw mental computing power of four top industry analysts today, gathering their collective thoughts on the possible purchase of Take-Two Interactive by mega-publisher EA. It wasn’t that long ago that EA boss John Riccitiello implied that big industry mergers were on their way out, following the company’s own acquisition of Bioware/Pandemic. But with the Activision Blizzard deal still piping hot fresh on industry watcher brains, one has to wonder: will EA snap up another?
Earlier This Year, two of Britain’s largest specialist games retailers, GAME and Gamestation, merged. It was a big deal. So big, in fact, it attracted the attention of the British Office of Fair Trading, who referred the takeover to the Competitions Commission. They were expected to have made a decision on the legality (under rules governing industry monopolies) of the move by January, but have already weighed it all up and come to a “provisional clearance”, which all but ensures the move will go ahead.
[Reuters]
Silly John Riccitiello! Big corporate gaming mergers are a thing of the past, eh? Guy didn’t get the memo. Not only did we get one of the industry’s biggest ever mergers only a few days after he said that, but now we’ve got Take-Two CEO Ben Feder saying more couplings are inevitable: I do believe that consolidation ultimately is inevitable…Video-game development is not getting any cheaper. It’s a capital-intensive business, and I don’t see that going away. That will drive some of the smaller competitors out.
Sure will! Then the new big, mean companies can go stale, break up and we can kick the cycle off all over again! Can’t think of a more entertaining way to lose a few billion investment dollars, can you? Consolidation inevitable, says Take-Two CEO [GI.biz]
