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'EA Land' closing just weeks after debut

Earlier this month, I wrote that Electronic Arts had made an announcement to members of its long-running but poorly received virtual world, The Sims Online, that it was re-branding the service as EA Land.

On Tuesday, however, EA announced on the official EA Land blog that it is now planning to shut the service down altogether.

"It is with mixed emotions that today we are announcing the EA Land experiment will soon draw to a close," the blog entry read. "Since 2002, EA Land/(The Sims Online) has attracted a very special group of players...and we … Read more

'Grand Theft' reviews give Take-Two a boost

Shares of game publisher Take-Two were up Monday on the heels of positive reviews of the forthcoming video game Grand Theft Auto IV, which is being released to the public at midnight Tuesday.

Shares of the game publisher traded as high as $27.10, 3.4 percent higher than Friday's closing price. That trading price is also a good dollar a share above the offer made by Electronic Arts when it launched its hostile bid for Take-Two last month. Take-Two rejected that offer, calling it "inadequate." Take-Two owns GTA creator Rockstar.

The excitement surrounding the release has … Read more

Take-Two rebuffs latest offer from EA

After a quiet few weeks, Electronic Arts and its takeover target, Take-Two Interactive Software, are back to sparring.

The latest round between the video game makers got into full swing on Friday morning, with word from EA that it would extend its Friday deadline for buying up all Take-Two shares by a month, to May 16. But even as it gave with one hand, it took away with another: EA said it would trim the per-share offering price to $25.74 from $26, given newly OK'd stock grants to Take-Two's management, ZelnickMedia.

On Thursday, Take-Two shareholders approved a … Read more

'The Sims Online' is officially reborn as 'EA Land'

For anyone familiar with The Sims Online, the poorly-received virtual world launched by Electronic Arts in 2002, take note: EA is relaunching it under a new name and for a new price: free.

Born as The Sims Online, it will now be called EA Land.

This is a rather momentous move by EA, since it means it is bringing back from the dead--at least as far as perception goes--a game that, while it never really got off the ground, was extremely important in the overall development curve of 3D social virtual worlds with economies.

And while TSO, as it came … Read more

EA to Take-Two: OK, we'll give you an extra week

Electronic Arts has amended its takeover offer for smaller video-game publisher Take-Two Interactive.

According to an EA representative and an EA filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the offer has been extended to Friday, April 18, instead of Friday, April 11. (EA's own press release incorrectly states that April 18 is a Wednesday. Oops.)

In addition, EA added a new condition to its offer: Take-Two must chuck its "poison pill" shareholder rights plan designed to deter the takeover.

Earlier this week, Take-Two officially rejected EA's bid, adopted the poison pill, and moved its annual … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 680: Wherein Rafe explains

EPISODE 680

AOL buys social network Bebo for $850 million http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9893014-36.html

MPAA boss: Net neutrality would cramp our P2P snooping plans http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080313-mpaa-boss-net-neutrality-would-cramp-our-p2p-snooping-plans.html http://opinion.latimes.com/bitplayer/ 2008/03/mpaa-clarifies.html

Report: Microsoft says no Blu-ray for Xbox 360 http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9893090-7.html

Blu-ray players: Mighty pricey http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9893149-7.html http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/12/ lack-of-competition-sends-blu-ray-player-prices-upward/

David in Vegas: Sony (and Movie Theater owners who charge me $6 for rubbery popcorn in a theater where you can’t (send in an … Read more

EA goes hostile for Take-Two

Updated March 13, 12:45 PM PDT, to reflect the announcement by EA.

Electronic Arts has launched a $26-per-share tender offer for all outstanding shares of game publisher Take-Two following the rejection of an unsolicited bid.

The bid for the rival publisher of the Grand Theft Auto game places the value of Take-Two at $2 billion. Announced Thursday, the EA tender offer is set to expire April 11 at midnight Eastern Time, unless extended.

The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on its Web site Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter.

In February, EA issued … Read more

Are developer mergers good for the video game industry?

Over the past decade, video game popularity has grown at an exponential rate. Instead of being the niche market that only a select few cared about, the industry is now worth billions of dollars and has become mainstream.

But as that has happened, video game developers like EA and Take-Two Interactive have become far more business-savvy and done their part in ensuring that they can maximize shareholder value and create an environment where video games are an extremely profitable product.

In the process, the video game industry has been damaged by a slew of mergers and acquisitions and in the process, some of the most profitable genres (first-person shooters and sports games, for example) have been copied and refreshed so many times over that gaming has quickly become derivative and bereft of innovation.

And although the main culprit for the lack of innovation is obviously the Almighty Dollar, another culprit is lurking in the shadows and quietly damaging the foundation of gaming as we know it--acquisitions.… Read more

Report: Take-Two approves new management payout

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the board of directors for video game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software, facing a buyout offer from Electronic Arts, approved new compensation packages for its management firm that would take effect with a merger or acquisition.

The new measures, approved within days of EA's initial offer, concern Take-Two's agreement with management firm ZelnickMedia. Under the revised terms, in the event of a takeover, ZelnickMedia would be awarded two restricted stock grants of 780,000 shares.

At EA's $26-per-share offer, that would be worth $20 million. Additionally, Take-Two's monthly management … Read more

Hands-on with EA and Spielberg's Boom Blox

EA was showing off its slate of upcoming releases to NY-based press last night. In addition to a peek at Spore, we were treated to a one on one with the Steven Spielberg and EA collaboration known as Boom Blox.

The game is primarily a puzzle-based physics simulator in which you partake in a variety of "blox" maneuvering modes. We learned how to play the game in a stage where you throw a baseball at different pieces, relying on real-world physics to knock over and blow up blox while accomplishing goals. While most of our time was spent understanding the basic fundamentals of the game, we learned that the original concept spawned mostly from Spielberg.

His idea was centered on the fact that children love to use building blocks to construct large structures, only destroy them. Boom Blox is essentially this but without the mess. The game is definitely the most physics-intense experience we've seen on the Wii. It looks a lot more accurate and complex than games that have tried to tackle physics simulation before, such as Elebits. Boom Blox may have a cartoony style, but its effects are much more in the vein of technical achievements, such as Crysis.

In the different gameplay modes in Boom Blox, we were able to try out a Jenga-like mission in which we had to carefully remove a number of pieces from a large construction, making certain not to harm the little cow creatures balancing at the top.… Read more