Spartan

Join Date 03/2006

+172

Wall Street Journal: Disney Should Buy EA

I say StarDock should organize a takeover coalition and do it instead

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With all the blood on the streets in the investment community and stock prices bottoming out and gigantic publishers in the gaming industry taking a beating for the first time in the industry's history, partly caused by the collapse of the financial industry but more likely caused by long term customer alienating business practices, a unique opportunity has presented itself for a progressive publisher to seize the day and do something that would put it in a position to really revolutionize the industry - looking at you StarDock.

The link is to a report published on GP about a WSJ article that suggests Disney should take over EA but I don’t think that would be a good thing for gamers. My response to the article is as follows...

I would like to see StarDock Entertainment step up and organize a takeover coalition with the following companies:

Paradox Interactive

Gas Powered Games

Ironclad Games

Kerberos Productions

I think the end result would be a truly awesome game development company that really would be focused on delivering the best product possible to gamers and providing outstanding product support.

With the GBR in development and the other projects in works and the street credibility of SD on both sides of the house as well as the other developers, I think it would be a righteous thing for all concerned parties.

On a side note: UserFriendly takes a crack at EA with its current comic. I hope to see one soon from Penny-Arcade.

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

Well, you really don't think much of the frog do you? If he's hosing us enough to form a partnership with three developer houses and buy out EA, um...

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EA costs way more than these companies have combined. Let's just hope ea doesn't try to buy out them, or any other decent studio or publisher.

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EA has been buying more lately, and they're not going to just get taken over. They are a brand name and a corner stone of the industry. I don't see them rolling over. That said I don't like them all that much.

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Yeah I know EA is a monster and has lots of cash on hand. Nonetheless I believe if those companies joined into one entity that the necessary financial support could be found. Moreover you never know maybe some VIP at Google likes Frogboy enough to work out a deal with him. I'm thinking a St. George and Dragon scene here. It would surely be the greatest coup in the entire history of the industry.

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Its stupid enough to over take a company since most of the talents from that company would leave for sure. An example is Westwood, the talents went to create their own company. GPG should never be bought unless its in trouble, GPG and stardock partnership is fine, theres no need to change that.

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I think the credibility that SD and the other companies have within the industry and gamer community would carry a lot of weight with the talent currently under the EA banner. Moreover I may be mistaken, but I believe all the companies I listed are privately held entities so the negotiations to form a holding or brand distro company could be hammered out expeditiously focused on the GBR. Think back to the noble idea that started out as GoD but got maligned after some time for various reasons. I am basically thinking the same thing but without all the political and financial intrigue.

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Spartan, I appreciate your thoughts on this topic, but this is just WAY out there. Not only do I think that it is impossible for stardock with 3 small developers to buy EA, but I also think that it is not Brian's plan or desire. Furthermore, Brian would probably openly admit that the stardock business model might not work for a large, publicly-traded company like ea.

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That might be EA's biggest problem: its publicly traded, and as such its bound by law to maximise profit, bla bla bla. Same with Activision-Blizzard, which has really started to reveal its nasty corporate-side.

Then you look at companies like Stardock, and Valve, and Rockstar, Bungie, that are not publicly traded, and generally they are producing higher rated games.

Moral of the story: if you become publicly traded, I will kill you.

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I do know of one merger that makes sense: Stardock and Papa John's Pizza. Oh yeah, definitely. When you consider the developers are there however long every day, you just throw meat in their offices every now and then, and order out for pizza, it makes sense that Stardock should just buy out a pizza company. Now THAT'S a recipe for some good games!

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For what it's worth, Trigeminal, his name is Brad.

tetley, that's actually not a horrible idea. I'm not sure Papa John's would make the most sense, nor do I know if it's the Stardockian favorite, and for all I know it may be franchised like Hungry Howie's is, in which case outright buying the company is pretty much impossible, or a full merger for that matter, but it's still something worth considering.

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@Trigeminal - Sure it is out there. I have acknowledged that already. Hence my epic coup statement. I know even if the price drops to $10 a share and if all the companies listed did agree on forming a consortium with Frogboy as the CEO and even if the Google money truck stopped in front of his house, just waiting for information as to where he wants the money put, it would be unlikely that the takeover would manifest as envisioned. We can dreams of a perfect world can't we?

On a much smaller scale I would simply like to see the companies listed come together. I have voiced this position before some time ago. They represent the most gamer & product support oriented companies in the industry in my opinion and in them coming together a great thing for gamers would materialize methinks. One I might add that would rival ActiBliz, Ubi & EA in no time.

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Quoting Sole Soul,

reply 10

For what it's worth, Trigeminal, his name is Brad.

Sorry, when it is late, my mind isn't as sharp.

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Quoting Spartan,

reply 11

We can dreams of a perfect world can't we?

We certainly can. I just thought you were stating this as a legit idea, as opposed to a dream. I suppose I thought it was like people on the cubs board, trade lee and get manny ramirez, c.c. sabathia, jake peavy, and 5 other all stars. Sometimes, people online forget that the real world has real world limitations to what is possible (probable). On a side not, I like the current set up, but would be more than happy to see stardock take on more projects grow and change the pc gaming scene before DRM turns too many people off.

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It would only become a real option if Google stepped up with money truck. Who knows maybe one of those writers might pick up on the idea and run with it and just maybe Google might take an interest and so might SD and the others.

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