Tag Archives: acquisitions

The Farmville and Mafia Wars Facebook behemoth looks to be in the process of snapping up mobile gaming studio Astro Ape, according to a report by Business Insider.

More »

According to this Reuters report, the European Commission has given the go-ahead for Activision and Vivendi to merge throughout this year. From the piece:

The complex deal will give Vivendi a 52 percent stake in a new industry giant called Activision Blizzard with annual revenue of $3.8 billion, rivaling that of Electronic Arts Inc (ERTS.O: Quote, Profile, Research), the world’s biggest independent game publisher.

The Commission said for “all categories of game software, the combined firm would continue to face several strong, effective competitors, such as Electronic Arts, and the game console manufacturers, such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft”.

Activision is riding high on the success of games such as “Guitar Hero”, “Call of Duty” and “Tony Hawk” but has lacked an offering in the online role-playing area, dominated by “World of Warcraft” from Vivendi’s Blizzard Entertainment.

According to this, all Sierra games past 2008 are up for review and may be scrapped. Citing sources, the piece says that all projects from the company will now have to be justified to Activision executives following the impending merger of the two companies.

“Titles set to come out this year, like The Bourne Conspiracy, Prototype, Brutal Legend, and Ghostbusters, are probably fine since they’re so far along,” said the piece. “But those in development for 2009 and later? They’ll all TBD.”

A great deal of uncertainty is surrounding the merger of Activision and Vivendi in Europe, with sources on all sides expressing worries about how the future will pan out for Activision Blizzard in terms of staffing, office locations and resultant portfolio.

The two companies will begin to merge in the coming months, so it’s doubtful we’re going to have to wait long to see how things are going to shape up.

According to this, Ubisoft has said it is to focus on acquiring licenses to expand its business as opposed to the EA model of buying everything in sight.

The news was contained in a financial report based on an article in French newspaper Les Echos.

EA made public a serious move to buy Take-Two last night, a deal that would have been worth more than $2 billion to Take-Two shareholders. While Take-Two has rejected the offer and negotiations are now ongoing, MTV was kind enough to put together a list of the companies EA has acquired over the past 17 years. Just in case you need it, like.

• 1991: Distinctive Software (now EA Canada); purchased for $11 million
• 1992: Origin Systems (now defunct)
• January 1995: Bullfrog Productions (now defunct)
• 1996: Manley & Associates (became EA Seattle, now defunct)
• July 1997: Maxis (folded into EA Redwood Shores)
• 1998: Tiburon Entertainment (now EA Tiburon)
• August 1998: Westwood Studios (now defunct); purchased for $122.5 million
• November 1999: Kesmai (now defunct)
• February 2000: DreamWorks Interactive (now EA Los Angeles)
• June 2002: Black Box Games (now EA Black Box/EA Canada)
• October 2003: Studio 33 (now EA North West)
• February 2004: NuFx
• August 2004: Criterion Software; purchased for a rumored 40 million pounds ($79 million)
• July 2005: Hypnotix (now part of EA Tiburon)
• December 2005: JAMDAT Mobile (now EA mobile); purchased for $680 million
• June 2006: Mythic Entertainment (now EA Mythic)
• August 2006: Phenomic (now EA Phenomic)
• October 2006: Digital Illusions CE; approx. $24 million
• November 2006: Headgate Studios (now EA Salt Lake)
• January 2008: BioWare Corp./Pandemic Studios; purchased for $620 million

Speaking in this Bloomberg report, Square Enix Yoichi Wada president has said he’s looking both domestically in Japan and in rapidly expanding markets such as India and China for companies to acquire as part of an ongoing growth plan.

“Acquisitions and alliances will be the cornerstone of our growth strategy this year and the next,” said Wada. “We are an entertainment content provider, so you won’t see us buying business software or food and beverage companies.”

Taito was the last company bought by Square Enix in 2005. Apparently it’s time to start assimilating again.

“The cycle of buying new companies, improving earnings and acquiring again comes on average every two years,” Wada said. “It’s been two years since we bought Taito. I think it’s time for the next round.”

Fighting talk. Let’s see if you can acquire something to make Final Fantasy XIII happen a bit faster, Yoichi.