CR6 Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 I wouldn't mind seeing a combination, a sort of Call of Duty in a contemporary setting and with a Clancy storyline ← Folks, this is a little off topic, but I need to say this: Day, you should buy GR2 for the Xbox if you want a modern day Call of Duty. I have played both now, and I feel that some of the gameplay in Call of Duty PC did share several similarities with GR2 Xbox ... e.g. 1) Playing as a single soldier throughout the campaign 2) Having AI backups with personalities that you get to bond with throughout the campaign 3) More linear missions I personally thought Call of Duty on the PC and GR2 on Xbox were both outstanding and each had excellent production values. However saying that, I do personally hope that GR2 for the PC goes back to more of its roots - but that is a discussion already hashed out in many other threads ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteKnight77 Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 To me this is rather disturbing news. As a race simmer who has 3 different versions of Papyrus' NASCAR Racing Series game that dripped with realism, I tried the demo for EA Sports NASCAR Thunder 2003 and thought the same as many other racing simmers. It had to be a straight console port. The graphics looked like the ripped them off right from a TV. Settimng up a car was using a bunch of sliders instead of actually choosing a numerical value like Papy's games have done. As bad as Ubi is becoming, with EA buying up part of Ubi, it does not bode well at all. I have a feeling, the games we loved so well in the past will become arcade games of the future. The only games I have that came from EA are a couple of Jane's flight sims, and I can't even play them on this PC ( ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoak Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 (edited) The point I was trying to make that many seemed to miss is that EA's current crop of realism titles are clearly of the 'Action' variety... Ubi is a good match or complement to those games because Ubi's titles don't currently compete in those markets... It might be some good insurance that the Ubi's games would stay more to the realism end of things (as many here feared they may not for obvious competitive reasons) if EA had a stake in Ubi. Obviously there are titles in both their line-ups that do compete, but those don't generally concern most Ghost Recon fans... This is like an Corporate move to diversify in a particular market, being more diversified makes your revenue stream less susceptible to market fluctuation and fad... It also gives both companies the leverage to make sure they don't make products that compete for the same audience at the same time. But I have to admit this is doesn't sound any more encouraging then Gollum mateing with a Balrog... Edited December 21, 2004 by Hoak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sup Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 Gollum mateing with a Balrog... ← I hate you for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ceReconSniper Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 the important thing is, we can begin to consolidate our complaints. ← hahaha, yeah we must also merge our complaints to counter their merging in this case the fight would be fair! I foresee how GR3 would look like... Imagine the ghosts played like the sims, when they ran out of ammo they will shout and get your attention on screen. And you even control the ghost to use the toilet and do some TOILET TRAINING. I also foresee Splinter Cell 4 Sam Fisher would learn to use flippendo (harry potter title of EA) to stun enemies They (EA) did this because upcoming Redstorm titles are a helluva threat to their products. And after purchasing UBI in the future they would close it down (oooops ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaceQuantex Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 It's worth repeating that Ubisoft has stated that they consider EAs stake building to be a hostile operation. We might still have a chance of this not happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoak Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Doesn't matter, the damage is done -- Ubi can't run the company profitably and is scraming like a bunch teen age girls at a rock concert; hell they probably orchestrated the whole thing to divert attention from the miserable performance of the company -- you know the "Look A Pink Bunny!" stunt... I'd bet my left...shoe lace that Ubi wants the stock sale to go through... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zantar45 Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 If Ubi did do it to make more money, then they could have just shot themselves in the foot. After EA bought the NFL and NFLPA rights the other day, alot of people are mad and threating to boycott all EA games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ceReconSniper Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 can RSE get the hell out of UBI and establish their own software company? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYR_32 Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 No, they are a wholly owned subsidary of UBI now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoak Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 If I worked at RSE I'd be concerned -- certainly they're a lot closer to all of it but consider: Ubi has farmed out the PS2 development of GR2 (and other Clancy games) on the Unreal Warfare engine which they're also heavily invested in and is very portable, Ubi has the option at its discretion at any time of disposing of the RSE engine and going with the UW engine for the future of all Clancy games, and using existing and the massive base of sub-contract UW Development talent. When companies loose money people get fired; the cost of human capital is one of the most expensive and expendable in business -- you can always hire more when you're more profitable and the game industry is swimming in an enormous talent pool... There's zero job security in the 'big media' business; Movies, Music or Game Development in general -- EA for example has a very results oriented meritocracy that sends people packing in a heartbeat if they aren't producing, and their production isn't generating positive cash flow, other Publishers like Sierra are little different... While some people thrive in this environment, creativity often takes a nose dive and second seat to production quantity and superficial quality. It's hard to imagine Sierra sending Dynamix packing with all the assets they brought the company -- but they did, without notice or warning and while the Dynamix's latest game was performing very well... Dynamix was a wholly owned subsidiary -- and now the "Tribes Franchise" is developed on the more ubiquitous Unreal Warfare engine with it's more manageable costs and move visible (as far as management) features and benefits like rapid development and easy portability. By way of comparison the RSE engine may be as capable and have a rich suite of in-house development and porting tools, but as Ubi has never allowed RSE to deliver really rich mod tools for the games the RSE engine lacks the pool of development talent Unreal Warfare, Valve and id Software engines offer... Ubi probably owns the Clancy name for gaming, and may even the rights to the RSE engine that they did not even pay to develop (and bought for a token sum) putting the real creative talent at RSE in the seat of indentured slave talent i.e. if the RSE guys want jobs working on the engine they developed and the title they made successful, they're going to have to do what Ubi tells them to... I'm sure it's not communicated that harshly, in fact they probably have very friendly production talent moving RSE projects in a satisfactory direction (to management) via camaraderie and genuine friendship -- but business is never that friendly, and wholly owned subsidiaries exist separately in name only.... Notice that DICE the small Swedish company that has developed the Battlefield games has turned down lavish offers from EA to buy them out -- hopefully they'll continue to do so and Game Development will maintain a modicum of independence... It's sad to see that more and more of the creative talent that is the real engine of the industry is being marginalized to low pay-scale employee status of large Publishing magnets -- all probably for the sake of job security, which doesn't exist anyway... . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Splash Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 EA to buy 20% share in Ubisoft Oh dear! Are we to expect 'GR Madden' or GR 2006, 2007 and 2008?!? Or even 'GR NHL - Ice Wars'. At least if it goes through and they have some control, we might expect multi-platform releases on day one of launch! Oh dear Part II! I'm just envisaging a huge corporate presence at E3, with planet sized screens showing sports, Harry Potter and GR all mixed in! Yeah! .....and indeed....Double Yeah! DS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRC Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 I'll have to sit back and watch this for awhile to see what's really going on. If it's truly a "hostile" buy in by EA, their intent won't be to co-exist with UBI, but to force them to sell out. This can be done by exercising their 20% to block things UBI wants to do, frustrating them to a point where they agree to sell. Why is EA doing this? Do they want to incorporate some proven titles into their product line? I think it's too early yet to call that UBI wanted this. One would need to see what UBI had projected for sales for the whole year/last quarter to see if they had missed their mark. The fact they were down in sales for the first half of the year is not surprising to me as most of their games were slated for late in the year releases. The government has yet to approve the buy in, and EA's greed this year may cause the government to question the purchase. On the other hand the corporations game titles are fairly different so the government may not consider it buying out competition. The news that comes out over the next month or two should clarify things a bit or make for a good soap opera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoak Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 If it were a hostile take-over as you and Ubi should like us to think I would suspect more tactful approach to buying Ubi would have taken. Unless top EA officers already own a significant Ubi shares through private individual purchae... Time will tell, and I doubt that EA involvement can be any worse for Ubi considering the clear trends we're seeing in how they approach their products which is functionally no different then EA and only on a smaller scale because they aren't as big... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sup Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 EA Also bought RENDERWARE a few months ago. Renderware = console domination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suli Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 hostle/non hostle, doesnt really matter. big fish eats little fish. Red Storm is all in all a sweet piece of pie, and a great tool for market expansion. Some Ubi studios are top class. its a good bussiness move on the part of EA. yes if they the guys at red storm "left together" to form a new company and continue there craft, funding would most likely find its way, they are after all a lucrative bunch. i guess it would just have to be seen as to the validity of UBI's non compete clause. hopefully that will be found out soon enough. lesson 1 to UBI. making yourself apear to be a tasty treat in the world of bussiness while offering your shares up is great. untill someone bigger than you tries to eat you. hopefully some one at UBI is now understanding what the other end of a buy out feels like. though maybe its just a strong investment on EA's part. if they become weak on the heels, they will atleast have a strong ownership of those that put them there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyCo Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 If Ubi did do it to make more money, then they could have just shot themselves in the foot. After EA bought the NFL and NFLPA rights the other day, alot of people are mad and threating to boycott all EA games. ← I doubt that "boycott" is going to be succesful. The only people mad about EA buying the NFL rights are those that play the SEGA alternative(NFL2K5) or just dont like the Madden games. EA puts out a great NFL game every year. You can bet I will buy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sup Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 Best version of this news I've heard: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/574/574467p1.html?fromint=1 ""Pending further information, we consider this operation as hostle," an Ubi Soft spokesman told Reuters. "We think this operation is aimed at securing the studios of Ubi Soft that are ready to face the next generation of gaming consoles," he added." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYR_32 Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 EA seems to be wanting to buy everyting, after securing the NFL lincense they also approached the NBA about exclusive rights for NBA games, at least the NBA turned them down, next on the list NHL me thinks... EA = MS of gaming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyCo Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 EA seems to be wanting to buy everyting, after securing the NFL lincense they also approached the NBA about exclusive rights for NBA games, at least the NBA turned them down, next on the list NHL me thinks... EA = MS of gaming. ← I thought the NFL was wanting to sell exclusive rights. If thats the case you really cant blame EA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sup Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 EA seems to be wanting to buy everyting, after securing the NFL lincense they also approached the NBA about exclusive rights for NBA games, at least the NBA turned them down, next on the list NHL me thinks... EA = MS of gaming. ← If I were over at SEGA I'd be proud. They made EA feel so threatened they had to cheat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyCo Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 (edited) If I were over at SEGA I'd be proud. They made EA feel so threatened they had to cheat. ← I would be upset because I just lost a good part of my income, but that's business. EDIT: changed ###### to upset Edited December 22, 2004 by EasyCo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goettschwan Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 I personally think that the Microsoftisation of the whole Computer Industry is a problem which has grown to serious proportions lately. This is no good news Imho because Ea Games shows a "tendency" to produce mainstream(lined) game titles with a constant eye on the money. Okay, shure, they have to watch their balance sheet, but i see a difference between this and publishing like -er- six or seven additional Sims Disks ? At their a-piece cost for the end consumer ? Yeah, right, they are really in it to make good games. I really wonder when and if someday there will be something like the Open Source Movement for Computer Games. And with EA further inhaling market share, i hope this would be soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peanut_Budder Posted December 23, 2004 Share Posted December 23, 2004 Hmm... a very interesting development. I for one though still see some hope in the realistic FPS shooter games. I think people tend to be a little pessimistic initially. Remember how people said the PC version of GR2 was going to be dumbed downbecause of the consel games? What's coming out in March? I think we should relax andwait to see what happens. (Damn, my spacebar is broken) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CR6 Posted December 23, 2004 Share Posted December 23, 2004 Anyone find any more updated news in the last couple days about whether this purchase is "hostile" or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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