When the story of Electronic Arts wanting to buy Take Two Interactive first broke a couple of months ago I made a really sweet graphic of Pac Man eating a blue ghost. Pac Man being EA and the frightened powerless blue ghost being Take Two. It was genius I say, sheer genius.
Unfortunately it seems I won’t be using that image, not anytime soon in any case. Friday was the deadline for Take Two shareholders to agree to a buyout from the game publisher everyone loves to hate and Friday passed without any acknowledgment of that offer from Take Two. It seems people want to hold onto stock of companies that just released the fastest selling game of all time, go figure.
This doesn’t mean EA is going to give up. This morning they announced an extension of the offer until June 16th even though Take Two shareholders and the board of directors are ‘just saying no’ to EA. The extension allows the FTC to continue to review what the take over will mean for the industry and if it is legal and keeps EA in the headlines.
Since it is an extension the deal must remain the same. And since the board of directors and shareholders have declined this preposed ammount since March, I’m not sure how extending their offer another couple of weeks is going to sway their opinion. In a way I am kind of happy about this deal not happening. More game developers and publishers means more competition and therefore better games. Too many gigantic publishers doesn’t make gaming fun for everyone else. You just get stuck with crappy games and not enough competition to drive the industry.
