Legal Niches

Is the Time Ripe for Videogame Takeovers?

By pete_gallagher

Falling stock prices and threats to traditional business models (digital distribution & social games for example) have made videogame companies ripe for takeover by media conglomerates.

A column on Fortune discusses the lure of such takeovers for Hollywood-type companies, but cautions that it's a buyers market and that the conglomerates should be in no rush to pull the trigger:

But there's no rush. Next year isn't shaping up well for the gamers so they may get cheaper. EA will be releasing 30 titles, down from 50. Take-Two, creator of Grand Theft Auto, is expected to report its fourth losing year in the last five. THQ has no breakout hits on the horizon, Wells Fargo notes, and faces another difficult year.

Shares of Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive are down 70% from previous highs, while THQ is off 90% the column notes, adding that the current combined enterprise value of the three companies is around $4.0 billion.

EA's bid to take over Take-Two should serve as a further reasoning behind a wait and see approach for companies like News Corp., Time Warner and Viacom:

But big media can wait. Indeed, it need only look at the bullet EA dodged when it stepped back from a $25.74 a share hostile bid for Take-Two in 2008. That's over three times Friday's closing share price.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on December 09, 2009 (boomark / email).