Electronic Arts Take-Two Deadline Covered by Epic Deal

So, Electronic Arts deadline for Take-Two stockholders to sell up at $25.74 (£12.50) expires at midnight tonight (New York time). Everything has been hushed. Take-Two has appointed a new chief operating officer in one Gary Dale but that's really been about it.

Electronic Arts has remained largely quiet on the Take-Two deal - or non-deal as it's looking - instead, on the eve of the Take-Two deadline, it's announced new partnerships with Epic Games via its People Can Fly studio - which helped out a bit with Gears of War and with Goichi Suda's Grasshopper Manufacture (No More Heroes).

Good timing by EA? Or just Plan B in the event that the Take-Two acquisition dies a death?

Let's hear what Epic's VP, Mark Rein has to say (which isn't as interesting as our recent interview with him). Sadly, Mark slides immediately into our least favourite slab of CorproBollox, "Epic is excited to work with EA Partners to launch our next big IP on the global stage.

"EA Partners gives independent developers like Epic the muscle of a global publisher like EA, along with the focus and flexibility of a smaller team committed to working with our individual needs."

Come on, there is no way Mark Rein actually said that - we're putting that firmly into the "written by lawyers and PR people" bin.

So, what of Suda and his producer colleague, Shinji Mikami? At least they were talking in an interview with Wired. Here's what the Suda had to say, "We came to EA last year and presented two ideas, actually, this one and one other (unstated projects). This one was our priority, and the other one was just something we wanted to show off. They decided immediately that they liked one of them, and that they didn't need the other. Most companies don't do that, they take their time and get back to you. But the thinking and the style of their work was great. They showed a big interest in this idea, and that's why we ended up working together."

Mikami has a more producer-like take on the matter saying that moving publishing funding to the gajin at EA is a good idea, "Because there were no publishers in Japan willing to put up the money for this big a project."

Yes, indeedy, Japanese publishers are too tight to pay the kind of money that EA will.

We await the Take-Two deadline extension or an agreement between Electronic Arts and Take-Two to 'move forward independently' within the next 48 hours.


^{Sources:
[url=http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2008/08/11/daily32.html]
Charlotte Biz Journal[/url]
Wired}