Acleacius wrote on May 19, 2012, 17:32:
Bhruic wrote on May 19, 2012, 17:01:
"Buying them out" only works if they want to sell. You can't forcibly buy out a private company. And if the developers would sell out to EA, they would do so regardless of whether EA is giving them 90 free days.
Absolutely false. Ever heard of hostile takeover, think Bioware was willingly bought out?
But that can only happen with a publicly traded company, or if private owners actually sell a controlling interest in the company.
For example, Valve is privately owned. No one's going to do a hostile takeover on Valve unless the people that own the company want it to be sold. I'm pretty sure that just means Gabe, as if I understand it correctly, he owns the vast majority (if not all) of the company's ownership.
Also, BioWare started out privately owned, too. And they let that holdings company that Bono from U2 was invested in buy them, then that holdings company sold to EA. I'm a little light on the details on that one, but the first time BioWare came into contact with a publicly traded company (and therefore became open to a hostile takeover) was only after EA bought them from that holdings group.