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According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, game development/publishing giant Electronic Arts and French-headquartered publisher Ubisoft are now holding informal tal...

Simon Carless, Blogger

February 16, 2005

1 Min Read

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, game development/publishing giant Electronic Arts and French-headquartered publisher Ubisoft are now holding informal talks, following EA's unexpected purchase of 20% of Ubisoft's shares. EA's block of shares were purchased from Dutch media tycoon John de Mol, and his investment vehicle Talpa Beheer BV. At the time, Ubisoft CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot commented of EA's purchase: "I have stated on the record that I view this action on the part of EA as hostile", and further marked of future concerns: "When looking at the longer-term, our only concern is the risk that we may not be allowed to fully realize our vocation of being creators of high quality games." The Ubisoft CEO also expressed disappointment following the transaction that Electronic Arts had not formally or informally contacted him before making the share purchase, which has sent Ubisoft shares soaring up almost 100% to 32.90 Euros ($42.80) since the late December revelation. But, according to Reuters, any initial Ubisoft talks with EA are likely "running parallel with other approaches that family-run Ubisoft is making" to possibly help stave off a hostile takeover, meaning that the alleged talks do not necessarily signify a change of tack from Ubisoft management.

About the Author(s)

Simon Carless

Blogger

Simon Carless is the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the popular GameDiscoverCo game discoverability newsletter. He consults with a number of PC/console publishers and developers, and was previously most known for his role helping to shape the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Conference for many years.

He is also an investor and advisor to UK indie game publisher No More Robots (Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw), a previous publisher and editor-in-chief at both Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, and sits on the board of the Video Game History Foundation.

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