EA Holds the DICE

[Jan 25, 2005, 11:30 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Electronic Arts Completes Tender Offer for Digital Illusions with 59.8 Percent Ownership (thanks HomeLAN Fed) announces that EA's quest to acquire Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE (DICE) is about complete:

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. & STOCKHOLM, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2005--Electronic Arts EA Holding AB ("EA") today announced the completion of its offer to the shareholders of Digital Illusions CE AB (publ) ("DICE").

The acceptance period for EA's offer to the shareholders of DICE, made on November 15, 2004, expired on January 20. Shareholders with a total of 3,235,053 shares in DICE(1), including Bonnier & Bonnier AB and DICE employees with significant shareholdings, have accepted EA's offer. This corresponds to 32.0% of the outstanding capital and votes in DICE. In addition to the above-mentioned offer, EA has acquired 898,264 shares in the market corresponding to 8.9% of the capital and votes in DICE.

Together with the 18.9% of the outstanding capital and votes already held by EA, EA now holds a total of 6,044,720 shares, a controlling interest representing 59.8% of the outstanding capital and votes in DICE. Additionally, EA holds warrants in DICE priced at SEK 47.23 which, if exercised, would bring EA's holdings to 67.3% of DICE shares. EA has not yet declared its intentions on whether those warrants will be exercised.

EA declares that the conditions for the tender offer have been fulfilled. Payment of the offer price to shareholders who have tendered their shares pursuant to the offer will commence and the transaction will be completed on or about January 27, 2005.

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47.

No subject

Jan 26, 2005, 14:41

Kxmode

EA should change to EF... They no longer are Electronic "Arts"... rather Electronic "Farts"

46.

Re: The new Microsoft?

Jan 26, 2005, 14:36

Kxmode

Derek Smart kill 3000 A.D. Microsoft killed Microsoft

45.

Re: Fuck

Jan 26, 2005, 14:20

Beamer

Every day Bluesnews starts to read more and more like the fucking Wall Street Journal.

God I love it.




------------- Music for the discerning: http://www.deathwishinc.com http://www.hydrahead.com http://www.painkillerrecords.com

44.

Re: The new Microsoft?

Jan 26, 2005, 09:16

Parallax Abstraction

Interplay bought Taldren, killed them, then killed themselves!

Interplay never owned Taldren. The only outside developer they owned was Shiny and they sold them to Infogrames a few months before Enter the Matrix came out. The one game that could have saved them and Darth Caen got rid of it.

Parallax Abstraction
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
StateOfGaming.org Coming Soon




Parallax Abstraction Geek Bravado \| Retro Flashback \| All Together Now

43.

Re: No subject

Jan 26, 2005, 09:14

Parallax Abstraction

Well to put it back where it started...there isn't ONCE PERSON HERE who didn't have problems with HL2.

The stutter problem (the only problem I had) was not game crippling and it didn't make the game stutter for minutes at a time. Not to mention, HL2 was a game that didn't do this in spite of looking extremely dated even at release (like BF1942 did.) I also agree that HL2 shouldn't have had that problem at launch either. But they are fixing it and not telling us to wait for HL3.

Parallax Abstraction
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
StateOfGaming.org Coming Soon
This comment was edited on Jan 26, 09:19.




Parallax Abstraction Geek Bravado \| Retro Flashback \| All Together Now

42.

Re: It's all my fault.

Jan 26, 2005, 01:56

Creston

alone probably accounted for .00453% of EA's profits in 1993. Now it's with my money that they are gobbling up and spitting out gaming companies like a bulimic Pac-Man. Somehow, I knew you were always to blame, Camaro... Then again, I bought pretty much the same titles, and quite a few others at the time (console games, Desert strike, all six of them, et al). Sigh. It was a few years earlier, I think, that I decided that that Windows 3.11 looked pretty cool, and bought that too. You can't trust anything with your money anymore these days. Creston

41.

It's all my fault.

Jan 26, 2005, 01:22

Camaro76

Had I known back in the early 90's what EA would turn into, I would have never bought Wasteland, FA/18 Interceptor, Madden Football, Project Firestart, Deluxe Paint, and other various and sundry EA games for my Commodore computers.

I alone probably accounted for .00453% of EA's profits in 1993. Now it's with my money that they are gobbling up and spitting out gaming companies like a bulimic Pac-Man.

I am so ashamed of myself.

[edited for clarity]
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[No pixels were harmed in the making of this post.]
This comment was edited on Jan 26, 01:25.




-------- BOOBIES Filter Greasemonkey script: http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/BOOBIES_filter.user.js Punk Buster (Ignore Trolls) Greasemonkey script: http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

40.

Hey morons

Jan 25, 2005, 22:37

Exitium

Blizzard is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi Universal.

39.

Re: So does this mean...

Jan 25, 2005, 22:08

beaves

EA ... We buy companies and make sequals of thier games!! yay! looking forward to bf2006.. bf2007...bf2008... bfxbox2!!

38.

Re: So does this mean...

Jan 25, 2005, 21:37

rckola

Thank God the pack didn't make it to the Super Bowl. Although I probably would have invested in Jergen's stock - considering how much the announcers jerk him off. You can thank the Vikings for that.

37.

Re: So does this mean...

Jan 25, 2005, 19:43

Creston

Battlefield 2 is going to have Madden doing commentary talking about how if you were Brett Farve you could have handled the insurgents a lot better and Brett Farve could show them what greatness is and that Brett Farve can throw a grenade 100 yards and Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve Brett Farve, And thats what its all about. No, it'll be more like this. Madden : "Now, you see this soldier over here? I'm telling you folks, I'm going to show you a great kill that he makes, coming out of his 17-4-82 half tank nickelback formation. You need to watch this. Here it comes. Watch this, watch this! BAM!! Right there! Did you see that? That's what I'm talking about! One less bad guy!" Although he would probably call the soldier the Brett Favre of soldiers. Creston

36.

Fuck

Jan 25, 2005, 19:40

Creston

Every day Bluesnews starts to read more and more like the fucking Wall Street Journal. Creston

35.

Battlefield 2 Delayed!

Jan 25, 2005, 19:37

Rico

An EA exec has said that BF2 is now pushed back to April/June

http://www.totalbf2.com/ for the scoop!

_______________________________
Dont hate the player, hate the game.




_______________________________ Dont hate the player, hate the game. www.TotalBF2.com

34.

Re: No subject

Jan 25, 2005, 19:36

Scottish Martial Arts

I think you are having a personal PC problem Likely although the ESC to menu delay was a widespread problem in the singleplayer demo for bf1942.

33.

Guess it's time..

Jan 25, 2005, 18:48

The Half Elf

To buy alot of canned food and shotgun shells. And yes EA has destroyed alot of companys they have purchased. Then again other company's specificly Taldren which had multiple publishers killed themselves, as well as Ion Storm. Maxis still makes good games and they still get their logo into the games they make. It just seems that when the publisher takes over control of a game instead of letting the company that use to make it do it, they game becomes crap. Examples: Ultima Onlines 2 and 3, Command and Conquer Series, Rainbow Six Series etc. My only hope from all the stuff EA has purchased lately is that the class action lawsuit against EA by the employee's goes to court and someone flat out ask, "Well why didn't you pay your employee's overtime if you just spent billions of dollars on NFL rights and the purchase of Dice?" So there may be some good come out of this... and so far Battlefield 2 does look good, and everyone who has played it hasn't had much to say bad about it. Only time will tell.

32.

Re: Hey EA!

Jan 25, 2005, 18:32

Beamer

Blizzard belongs to Vivendi. Remember, Roper left over when they started getting pushy. God, that was a year and a half ago now, wow.

I haven't had any trouble with HL2, aside from being able to take a nap while waiting for the initial menu to load. My gaming PC is dead, so I play on my laptop, and it runs surprisingly well.




------------- Music for the discerning: http://www.deathwishinc.com http://www.hydrahead.com http://www.painkillerrecords.com

31.

Re: Hey EA!

Jan 25, 2005, 18:29

Yakuza

Um... Bioware, Relic, LucasArts (hah!), Raven, etc. those EA sons of bitches don't own them, yet. Someone really needs to do something violent to that company.

30.

Hey EA!

Jan 25, 2005, 18:16

NHS7000

Hey EA, only 4 good developers left for you to acquire: Blizzard – id Software – Epic Games – Valve After that we can kiss PC gaming community good bye.. Bye and good luck..

29.

Re: The new Microsoft?

Jan 25, 2005, 17:10

Jedi Master

They're not alone in that. Ubisoft killed Redstorm. Ubi killed SSI. Infogrames killed Microprose, then started calling themselves "Atari". Interplay bought Taldren, killed them, then killed themselves! Vivendi killed Papyrus and Sierra, who was itself responsible for killing Dynamix. Pretty much every dev that gets bought by a pub goes down the tubes sooner or later. Activision bought Raven, and some people say they're gone, although I personally think they're still doing well. We'll get a better idea when Quake IV comes out. The Jedi Master

28.

Re: The new Microsoft?

Jan 25, 2005, 15:45

Warskull

Merges and buyouts is nothing new. It's been happening forever. The only difference is we have the internet to make us aware of this stuff, AND we are listening and responding to the way a company behaves in the industry. Personally I hate EA! But unfortunately a lot of my favorite games are made by their wholy owned companies (DICE, etc.) So what do you do? It's a catch 22. Get new favorite game companies? I used to love the stuff Origin put out, EA killed them. Maxis made some great Sim games in the past, EA killed them. Westwood, same thing. Bullfrog... more EA syndrome. You just have to find new companies and accept that EA is a death sentence for and company they acquire.

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