Geek Gestalt

I was joking with an editor of mine this afternoon that CNET News.com should put a little permanent widget on our front page that says something along the lines of, "Has Electronic Arts announced a timeline extension of its offer to buy Take-Two Interactive today? Yes or no." And then it would have a little check-box for each choice.

Now, in all fairness, most days, the "No" box would be checked. But let's be honest here: On an awful lot of days, we'd have to toggle it to "Yes."

Today would be one of those days, as EA announced that it has reached a deal with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission not to buy Take-Two until the FTC completes its look into the proposed merger, or until 45 days after the government tells EA that all is hunky-dory with the takeover.

Now the last time EA said it would extend the deadline for Take-Two to respond to its $2 billion tender offer was May 19. I wrote then that the company was losing its credibility with each new extension, and, well, nothing that has happened since has changed my mind.

That's particularly true since EA hasn't upped its offer for Take-Two, despite the fact that the latter's recent release, Grand Theft Auto IV, has sold for many hundreds of millions of dollars since its record-breaking release on April 29.

For its part, Take-Two has remained resolute to turn down the $2 billion offer, essentially demanding more money, something EA keeps saying it won't agree to.

And it's true that in takeover situations like this one, it's not at all uncommon for things to drag on and on and for deadlines to pass and then pass again. Look at Oracle and PeopleSoft. Or, obviously, Microsoft and Yahoo.

But EA's position seems to be that it has factored in GTA IV's success into its offer price and even though the game did far better than expected, it's still not willing to add even one more dollar to the bid.

Well, fine. In the end, EA may one day get its wish and get Take-Two for its own. But for now, with each new time that we here at News.com have to check that "Yes" box, it just further erodes what little credibility that EA has left on this deal. And believe me, that isn't much.

On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South's most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.

Electronic Arts said Monday that it is once again extending its $2 billion offer for 'Grand Theft Auto' publisher Take-Two. Take-Two retorted by rejecting the offer.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

"If you don't clean up your room today, you're going to be in trouble," yells Dad.

"I don't want to," retorts the rebellious teen. "I don't have to."

The day ends, and the next day, Dad says, "This time I really mean it. Clean up your room today, or there's going to be hell to pay."

This is exactly what the dynamic between Electronic Arts and Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take-Two feels like: EA yells, "We're offering to buy you, but you have to decide by our artificially imposed deadline."

In return, Take-Two does nothing, though in the interim, its new game breaks every short-term entertainment industry sales record. That's sort of like winning the science fair the same night as refusing to clean your room.

And then, just like a parent who has lost credibility for not sticking to his or her guns the first time, EA said this morning that it has now decided to extend the deadline for Take-Two's board to accept its $2 billion takeover bid to June 16. Most recently, the offer had expired at 11:59 p.m. on May 16.

In response, Take-Two's board said Monday morning that it was once again rejecting the bid.

This, of course, after an earlier deadline of February 22 had passed and was also extended.

I'm very sure that EA's announcement this morning that Take-Two can still accept its offer had nothing at all to do with the fact that EA desperately wants to own the GTA franchise and get the keys to the bank account with the Scrooge McDuck money bin quantities of GTA IV loot.

Rather, it was couched as a procedural move.

"Extending our offer will allow the (U.S. Federal Trade Commission) review process to continue," said Owen Mahoney, EA's senior vice president of corporate development, in a press release. "EA's offer price remains unchanged at $25.74 per share and our offer is still subject to conditions that include regulatory approval."

Right. To me, this is like Dad saying, "Well, okay, I'll give you another day to clean your room, but only because I'm waiting for Uncle Charlie to decide if your room is clean enough already."

This is becoming rather ridiculous. It's obvious to everyone that EA cannot let Take-Two go, and meanwhile, Take-Two is sitting pretty, counting its new millions.

To be sure, EA had figured in an expected large infusion of cash from GTA IV sales into its original offer. But no one figured on the game bringing in more than $500 million in its first week. Right there, that was a quarter of what EA is bidding for all of Take-Two.

But the offer also did not take into consideration a new movie deal Take-Two signed with Universal Pictures to have its game, Bio-Shock, turned into a movie.

So, Take-Two wants more than the $2 billion EA is offering. Good for Take-Two. I certainly don't have any inside dope on the company's financials and whether or not it can succeed without EA's money, but from here, Take-Two is looking pretty solid right now.

As for EA's new June 16 deadline, I'm thinking that it has all the meaning of, well, its last two deadlines. Which is to say, almost none.

Note: On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South's most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.

If worldwide headlines about the record-setting first-day and first-week sales of Grand Theft Auto IV weren't enough, the game's publisher and its developer, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games, now have a Guinness world record to boot.

On Tuesday morning, Guinness issued a press release certifying the game's insanely profitable launch as the entertainment industry's best ever for one day ($310 million) and one week ($500 million).

Interestingly, in stories I've written about this previously, I wrote that GTA IV had broken the single-day record of $170 million previously held by Bungie Studio's Xbox 360 game, Halo 3. In many stories, by both me and others, it has been exhaustively pointed out that the best video game launches had far outdone those by the best films.

According to the Guinness release, however, the previous record was actually not a video game at all. Rather, it was J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, the final book in that cash-cow series, which when it launched last July, earned $220 million in its first 24 hours.

If this is true, then Microsoft--which owned Bungie at the time--was wrong when it touted the first-day sales of Halo 3 as the then-best entertainment-industry launch.

Funny that despite the incredible sales of the last Harry Potter, no one, myself included, had thought to include books on the list of best launches.

Well, no matter. Now, even that record has fallen to the might of the GTA IV machine.

Humorously, as part of its release, Guinness is hawking its new Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, obviously trying to tie the GTA IV record to the new book. It's a natural link to make, of course, although the book was published before the new record.

I have the book, and it's kind of fun. There's a lot of interesting video game trivia, obscure records, and much more.

But, alas, no mention of the GTA IV record.

On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South's most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.

'Grand Theft Auto IV' broke the all-time records for single-day and one-week entertainment industry sales. It looks like it could be tough for any forthcoming game to knock GTA IV off the top of the hill.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Though Halo 3 held the all-time entertainment industry record for single-day sales for eight months, it could be a long time before anyone bests the record-shattering sales achieved by GTA IV.

On Wednesday, Take-Two Interactive, which owns GTA IV developer Rockstar Games, announced that the new game had raked in all-time records of $310 million on its launch day of April 29 and $500 million during its first week. The single-day figure shattered the previous record, set last September by Halo 3, of $170 million.

And given how quickly Bungie Studios' Halo 3 was reduced to second place, it stands to reason that even the monstrous pile of cash GTA IV has earned so far--it has already sold more than 6 million copies, Take-Two said--could be in danger from some game already in the pipeline.

Among the games that are set to be released in the next few months that seem like potential contenders: Electronic Arts' Spore, Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft II, Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, EA's 2009 version of Madden football, LucasArts' Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Activision's next Guitar Hero offering, Harmonix's next Rock Band version and Nintendo's Wii Fit.

And since we're talking the entire entertainment industry, there's also the small matter of the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from Paramount and LucasFilm.

But according to several industry experts contacted for this story, none of those titles seems likely to score the kind of cash in a single day or single week that GTA IV did. So while one of those games, or possibly another one not listed might some day best GTA IV in total sales, it seems that its short-term sales records are safe for the foreseeable future.

"If you measure in terms of one-day sales," said Michael Pachter, a video game analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, "there's likely nothing (that can break the record) until the next GTA."

In large part, Pachter said, that's because the GTA franchise has the significant advantage of being perhaps the world's most popular video game title that is available on multiple video game platforms. Indeed, many analysts have said that the game is not only selling well on its own, but is also driving sales of the consoles it can be played on, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.

By comparison, Halo 3 is only available for the Xbox 360.

"The special thing about GTA is that it's a cross-platform title and can leverage the install bases of both" consoles, said IDC games analyst Billy Pidgeon. "The fact that you could only play Halo on the Xbox 360 made a difference."

And beyond the cross-platform versus single-platform issue, there's also the small matter of the miniscule selection of full-fledged AAA games that simply attract huge audiences.

"Halo and GTA are fairly unique properties in the interactive entertainment world," said Colin Sebastian, a senior analyst for Lazard Capital Markets, "so it's difficult to say if anything in the next couple of years will reach these (early sales) levels."

That said, there's no reason to think that GTA IV will set or hold any kind of long-term sales numbers. While it's certain to make gigantic amounts of money and sell many, many millions of copies, it's not necessarily the kind of game that will sustain its sales over the long haul. Rather, it's the kind of game the attracts hard-core gamers, most of whom want to get it right away.

"If you measure in terms of lifetime sales, I think Wii Fit," Nintendo's forthcoming exercise game, could break sales records, said Pachter. "I think it's going to attach about a one-third rate to all Wiis, and globally, that means (since there have been 20 million Wiis sold), it'll pass GTA IV by the end of next year."

Some people are expecting Spore, the next game from The Sims creator Will Wright, to be a big winner for EA, particularly because The Sims became the best-selling PC game of all time and recently passed 100 million total units sold, counting all its expansions and sequels.

"Personally, I think Spore is going to be a huge influence on the games industry," Pidgeon said. "And I think it's going to do well. I don't know if it's going to be another Sims, but I think it will be broadly popular."

But Spore presents a couple of problems, at least in terms of whether or not it could be an all-time best-selling game. First, it is a PC--and Mac--title, not a console game. And secondly, according to Pidgeon, it doesn't seem an obvious choice for endless expansions like The Sims franchise is.

Another set of titles that could contend for the all-time sales records, though probably not the short-term records, are the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises, since they will likely have an endless supply of expansions and accessories. And they have long-term potential that even GTA probably can't match.

"Guitar Hero and Rock Band (are) franchises where, when you add the numbers up, they're just spectacular," said Pidgeon. "You see them played in bars, and (they present) a really interesting growth opportunity. There's a lot of room for exciting growth in that sort of product. That's the sort of thing you don't see with GTA.

And while none of the analysts interviewed for this article could see any already announced game topping GTA IV's short-term records, that doesn't mean it won't happen.

In fact, the timing of the GTA IV launch itself could eventually be why it gets surpassed.

"Part of this is also where we are in the hardware cycle," Pidgeon said, explaining that GTA IV was published when the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have only been out for a couple of years. Over time, as millions more gamers bring those consoles home, "it'll be easier for some blockbuster title to sell big."

Uh-oh.

For all the champagne toasts that are no doubt going on over at Take-Two Interactive and its subsidiary Rockstar Games over the grand launch day of Grand Theft Auto IV, there's a bit of a dark cloud brewing.

According to a post on CNET News.com sister site GameSpot, there's a brouhaha afoot in GTA IV forums all over the Internet because of some players' complaints that the game is freezing up on them.

As GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair points out, it was only a month ago that another one of Rockstar's games, Bully had freezing-up problems. Now, with reports of crashes with GTA IV, mostly on the PlayStation 3, but also on the Xbox 360, one has to wonder if perhaps there's someone in Rockstar's QA department that's not doing their job.

Other recent hit games, of course, have also had quality problems. You might recall that some players of Guitar Hero III had problems with their guitar controllers.

So one thing that will certainly help Take-Two and Rockstar get through this relatively unscathed--assuming the reports of GTA IV freezing up are real--is if they react quickly and solve the problem and reach out to their users. If they don't, it won't look good.

'Grand Theft Auto IV' could break the all-time entertainment industry record for first-day sales. That record is currently held by 'Halo 3,' which earned $170 million in its first day last September.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Executives at Electronic Arts have to be kicking themselves right about now.

It appears that Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher EA has been trying to buy for the last couple of months, has a potentially record-breaking hit on its hands with Grand Theft Auto IV. And EA isn't pocketing the cash.

While it's too early to know exactly how many copies of GTA IV sold Tuesday, the game's launch day, anecdotal evidence suggests it will likely be one of the most successful launches in the entertainment industry's history--if not the most.

"We are saying that the launch of this game is tracking to be one of the top three best-selling games," said Chris Olivera, vice president of corporate communications for GameStop, "not of just this year, but the top three games in (our) company's history."

The latest title in what was already one of the most blockbuster game franchises of all time, GTA IV hit store shelves Tuesday morning with midnight madness events nationwide. The game had sparked controversy, with some politicians and critics calling for retailers to avoid selling it, but that didn't seem to dissuade consumers.

"Thirty-five hundred of our stores nationwide did midnight launch events," Olivera said. "One thing was constant through all of it, that there were lines around buildings and down mall corridors" wherever GameStop's stores were.

Last year, Microsoft took the unusual step of releasing first-day sales figures for its mega-hit Halo 3 because that game set the all-time entertainment industry record for launch day sales, $170 million.

'Halo 3' earned $170 million on its first day of sales. But Take-Two's 'GTA IV' looks poised to break that record and become the single highest-earning entertainment product in history, including movies.

(Credit: Bungie)

While we may not know if that's true until industry analyst firm The NPD Group reports April sales early next month, there's reason to believe the Halo 3 record will be short-lived.

Partly, that prediction stems from reports that GTA IV publisher Take-Two said it had worldwide preorder demand of 6 million copies of the game--or about $360 million worth at the game's $60 price tag.

There are also comments, like those expressed to CNET News.com sister site GameSpot by Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter: "There is no question that GTA will be huge. I think that the game will sell 11 (million) to 13 million copies by calendar year end, with probably 4 million the first week."

On the other hand, suggested NPD analyst Anita Frazier, if GTA IV breaks the Halo 3 record, Take-Two might find a reason to release the game's first-day sales numbers itself.

The console factor
One interesting difference between the launch of GTA IV--which was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3--and its predecessor, the hugely popular GTA: San Andreas, is the install base of the consoles the games are available on.

Frazier said that when GTA: San Andreas was released in 2004, there was already an install base of 25 million PlayStation 2s, the only console that game was initially released on. By comparison, GTA IV is coming out earlier in the release cycles of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

"The combined install base of the PS3 and Xbox 360 now sits at 14 million," Frazier said, "and surely huge hardware numbers will be driven by the release of GTA IV.

Olivera concurred.

"This (game) is definitely drawing people into (GameStop) stores to also pick up hardware," Olivera said, "both the Xbox 360 and the PS3."

Another metric of the intense interest in GTA IV: statistics from Gamespot's Trax service, which measures site traffic for specific games.

According to Gamespot Trax, Gamespot users did 70,441 searches for "Grand Theft Auto IV" in the 30 days prior to its release, vs. 20,772 for Halo 3 and 10,598 for Guitar Hero III, another one of the best-selling games of all time.

So, as Take-Two's executives are no doubt popping champagne and toasting the massive initial success of their new game, one has to wonder what the thinking is over at EA and whether it will have to modify its $2 billion bid for Take-Two.

As Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian told me Monday, "The expectations for GTA were already justifiably very high. EA understood that when they made their bid...Every day that passes, they're (going to be) losing out on GTA revenues, so they're likely to lower their bid over time...But if GTA massively exceeds their expectations, that could be a scenario where EA might have to raise their bid."

In the meantime, stay tuned to see if Take-Two issues any press releases about GTA IV Wednesday. If it does, I'm willing to bet that will mean Halo 3's record will be history.

Dear Take-Two and Electronic Arts: I'm not an arbitrator. And neither are my colleagues who cover video games.

I know it's nothing new in the fast-paced world of hostile takeovers, tender offers and other forms of mergers and acquisitions, but it's beyond obvious that both Take-Two and EA are using the press--and our outreach to the public--to try to negotiate the best terms in whatever marriage the two eventually end up in.

Much of the belly-aching around the timing and the pricing of any takeover of Take-Two by Electronic Arts has to do with the forthcoming release of 'Grand Theft Auto IV,' and the huge sales it will likely produce.

(Credit: Take-Two Interactive)

First they worked on a possible deal behind the scenes and when EA didn't hear what it wanted from Take-Two, they took their offer public. Take-Two didn't like the money that was put on the table, so they pushed it away. EA made a hostile tender offer. Take-Two's board now urges shareholders to reject it. And on and on and on.

Nothing's really changed: EA wants to pay less; Take-Two wants more. EA wants to close the deal before Grand Theft Auto IV is published. Take-Two thinks it can hold EA over a barrel because of the game's forthcoming release.

Yet everyone seems to agree that one way or another, Take-Two needs to get bought and that EA is probably a good buyer.

I'm reading reports on the kerfuffle in which respected video game industry analysts say Take-Two has to take the offer or it'll be too late. Or maybe they don't, because EA will extend the date of the expiration of their tender offer. Or maybe Microsoft will come in and buy both companies since they don't seem to be making much progress on gobbling up Yahoo. Okay, I made that last one up to see if you were paying attention.

But basically, I just want to tell EA and Take-Two and every other set of companies that decides the best way to achieve their selfish takeover goals is to use the press that, well, I don't want to be used.

These companies are masterful at putting out self-serving releases that they know reporters will swallow, and then they refuse to make executives available for any kind of follow-up questions. I don't expect anything to change because of this rant, but come on: Stop using the press to try to achieve what you should be doing on your own. Get your highly-paid keisters into a meeting room. Order some takeout. Lock the doors. And work this out yourselves.

Update (12:36 p.m. PDT): Wellll, at the risk of being the mouthpiece I've said above that I don't want to be, here's EA's statement on the Take-Two board's rejection of the hostile tender offer:

"It is regrettable for stockholders that Take-Two's board of directors has not accepted EA's offer. EA believes that a combination of EA and Take-Two is in the best business interest of all parties.

"EA's offer price of $26 per share is full and fair, and reflects the value of Take-Two's intellectual properties, talent, and operational progress. EA's all-cash, tender offer commenced on March 13 is the most certain way to create stockholder value, and represents a 64 percent premium over Take-Two's closing stock price on February 15, the last trading day before EA sent its revised proposal to Take-Two.

"EA's tender offer is a clear process for Take-Two stockholders to maximize the value of their investment. By advising its stockholders to reject the offer, Take-Two's board is exposing them to further delays which may reduce the value and the certainty of a potential transaction.

"EA's tender offer is currently scheduled to expire on April 11, 2008."

Electronic Arts is not alone in its interest in buying Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required to read entire article).

SEC filings show that Take-Two says it has received other offers, but has spurned those as well as the original $2 billion offer EA made last Friday and announced last Sunday, the Journal reports.

EA issued a public statement on Sunday saying it had made an earlier offer to Take-Two that was rejected and that it was boosting the per-share price it was willing to pay to make the deal worth $2 billion. But Take-Two quickly issued its own announcement, saying it thought EA's offer was too small and that it would prefer to wait to have any negotiations with anyone until after the April 29 release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which is expected to be a hit.

For its part, EA has said it wanted to get a deal done before the game's release. It is also evident that EA's interest in Take-Two is at least partly in response to the recent acquisition of Activision by Vivendi, a marriage that could potentially turn the resulting video game giant, to be known as Activision Blizzard, into the industry's largest company.

Imagine the game industry dominated by two giants.

That's what could happen if Electronic Arts succeeds in its $2 billion attempt to grab Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive and Activision's planned merger with Blizzard goes through.

As in so many other industries, an EA/Take-Two merger would indicate massive consolidation, especially in the wake of the December announcement that media giant Vivendi was buying Activision to become Activision Blizzard. But gamers probably shouldn't worry that an industry pyramid dominated by EA and Activision will mean less innovation.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

After all, even with a wide gap between the No. 1 and No. 2 companies and everyone else, it's important to remember that there would still be plenty of important and respected publishers: Disney, Ubisoft, THQ, Midway, and Infogrames, to name a few, not to mention Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

Still, a successful EA takeover of Take-Two would have far-reaching effects.

"I think we're seeing further consolidation of companies capable of publishing and marketing AAA, expensive-to-develop games, which is to say, those that can cost $20 million or more to create, and as much again to market," said Simon Carless, publisher of both Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra.com. "However, there's still plenty of opportunity for diversity for smaller companies."

One reason Carless thinks small developers can maintain a valuable presence in the industry is EA itself. He points to EA Partners, Electronic Arts' internal development partnership division, as a publishing resource for small developers that have good games in the pipeline.

Additionally, he said, "They can even distribute digitally, which may not require using a publisher at all....So I think this shows that the next-gen retail publishing giants are still consolidating, but I don't believe it is bad for the future of gaming, because there are so many ways to distribute and play games. And digital distribution is starting to create somewhat of a more level playing field."

At the time the Vivendi-Activision merger was announced, it seemed the company could become the world's largest video game publisher, possibly eclipsing EA, which had held that No. 1 position for many years. It also was clear EA would have to do something big if it wanted to keep the undisputed top spot.

Whether the proposed Take-Two acquisition is a direct result of that dynamic--EA said in a conference call Monday morning that it had been talking to Take-Two's management for nearly a year, though it hadn't made any formal moves until at least December--if it goes through, the industry will be a bit top-heavy.

Still, there's no doubt that EA reclaiming its top-dog position does pose some danger to the industry, at least in the minds of those who have watched the company's performance and behavior over the last few years.

"The biggest concern gamers probably have on their mind is that EA has this image of...taking a (title) or franchise and running it into the ground," said Brian Crescente, editor of the popular video game blog, Kotaku.com. "For a number of years, any property EA got its hand on would eventually be burnt out."

But Crescente added that he thinks EA's 2007 reorganization, in which the company split into four distinct labels--EA Sports, EA Games, The Sims, and EA Casual Games--has begun to erode that dynamic.

"I think the whole movement toward the labels initiative that they announced is turning things around for them," Crescente said. "It's probably too early to tell if it's anything more than them paying lip service."

From the standpoint of the overall video game marketplace, Crescente did allow that the current environment--especially if either EA or some other major player, like Microsoft, buys Take-Two--is scary for small developers worrying if they can compete with such behemoths.

"This is a concern, and it's the continuation of a trend that's been happening for at least a year, if not longer," he said. "When you saw companies like Bioware and Pandemic getting bought up, it's pretty frightening if you're a developer."

And even if neither EA nor anyone else buys Take-Two, Crescente said the big companies are still going to be pushing a consolidation agenda. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

"I think it's inevitable that these smaller companies are going to get bought out," he said. "What makes me feel better about it is that companies like EA and Microsoft are going out of their way to try and get people to do independent game development. At least we're seeing that they understand the importance of not just being one big faceless company."

More EA takeovers ahead?
And to be sure, EA is trying to lay the groundwork for its own continued gobbling up of small competitors, as well as by other big names.

"There's a long history of companies in position 4, 5, 6, 7," EA CEO John Riccitiello said during his conference call Monday morning. "This includes Infogrames, Midway, Acclaim, Giant Interactive....Companies that have strong cash flow positive experience every couple of years and lean times in between have had a very hard time surviving in this business and making the investment in infrastructure that EA's been able to make. They'll be acquired by somebody."

And there's no reason to doubt that he's right, given that there continue to be bigger and bigger deals in the industry and that consolidation seems to be the way of just about every kind of business.

Indeed, The New York Times suggested Monday morning that another big deal to expect in the weeks ahead might be a Disney purchase of THQ Interactive--publisher of such games as the WWE: SmackDown vs. Raw! wrestling games.

In fact, THQ's stock was up 9.53 percent Monday on news of EA's Take-Two takeover bid.

Another company whose stock was way up Monday was Take-Two. Its stock actually rose above EA's $26 a share, closing at $26.89, up 54.9 percent on the day.

"I think (that) shows two things," Crescente said. "One, shareholders, think (the EA bid) is great news. And it also shows that they think it's going to happen."