We've issued a press release that explains why the deal is attractive for the shareholders of both Take-Two and EA. Now I want to share some perspective on why it would be good for the people who make Take-Two's games and, just as important, the people who play them.
"I hope EA doesn't judge us off of today, " Favre said jokingly.
Having spent some time with the game, I can see where frustrations might occur with this model, but I think EA has made the correct decision to make Real Racing 3 a freemium title.
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My biggest problem with EA, and the reason I am loth to purchase their titles, is their complete apathy of the input of customers.
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When I came back to EA last year, we introduced a new organization model that respects creative cultures and gives developers more freedom.
And I think that, like EA buying Playfish, the major publishers will acquire new markets.
With a wide array of Android-supported controllers coming later this year, I can only hope that EA will choose to adopt at least one of them for its mobile titles going forward.
After March, I will be cheering wildly for EA from the sidelines.
I'm pleased to announce that EA has made a proposal to acquire Take-Two.
EA's shareholders and employees expect better and I am accountable for the miss.
When EA and Visceral announced the Dev Team Edition, I was quite intrigued, as it promised some nifty game-related items as well as physical items based off in-game items.
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"Having watched the game industry grow from a niche into a major creative force in entertainment, I have a great deal of respect for EA's understanding of the interactive format, " said Spielberg.
On the other hand, from what I can tell very few people are actually letting EA off the hook this time, and who knows who these few drive-by commenters really are?
The position of the Board of Directors (the "Board") of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (the "Company") with respect to an acquisition of the Company by Electronic Arts Inc. ("EA") has not changed from that which you and I have previously discussed.
The progress EA has made on transitioning to digital games and services is something I'm extremely proud of.
So you could rely on the future good will of EA in spite of the disdain their actions show currently, but I certainly wouldn't put money on them putting in that additional effort.
This brings us back to a list I wrote a little while back about possible Star Wars games EA could make.
One such bug I found took over 7 months to be addressed, and EA introduced the bug in one of their expansions.
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Last night, the Xbox and PS3 servers went down about 8PM EST, and for the next hour, I checked Twitter where about a hundred tweets a minute went up berating EA for their misfortune.
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"I had high expectations of AMD's new DirectX 11 GPUs, but nothing really prepared me for the breathtaking experience that I'm now enjoying, " said Dirk Ringe, vice president, EA Phenomic.
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But I am damn proud of this company, the people around the globe who work at EA, the games we create and the people that play them.
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While I still doubt that any of this was intentional, the very best possible thing for EA to do under the circumstances was turn on the Welcome sign and buy a round on the house.
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In particular, I am confident that the investments we have made in games for next-generation consoles will put EA in a strong leadership position for many years ahead.
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