Reporting a second-quarter loss that widened thanks to a weak videogame market, Electronic Arts today said it will cut 1,500 jobs by early next year as part of a restructuring effort aimed at trimming at least $100 million in costs. This after announcing plans this morning to acquire social network game maker Playfish for $400 million.
Electronic Arts is betting big on social gaming. This morning, the videogame publisher said it will acquire social network games maker Playfish for $400 million. An interesting move given that the company’s leadership dismissed rumors of such a deal just last month.
Apple has sold some 225 million iPods to date, making it one of the most popular electronic devices ever. And it’s sure to sell even more after the updates the company announced at this morning’s event in San Francisco. Among them: Larger, cheaper iPod touches and nanos with cameras and FM radios.
Celebrated game designer Will Wright has a new job: doing whatever he damn well pleases. He’s leaving Electronic Arts, the game publisher for which he developed Spore and the wildly successful Sim City and The Sims franchises, to run Stupid Fun Club, an entertainment think tank developing ideas for everything from toys to TV.
Electronic Arts is experiencing first hand what it’s like to be on an evolutionary downswing in one of its life-simulation games. Its stock dragged down to its lowest price in seven years Friday after scaling back its earnings forecast and announcing layoffs, EA is on a nasty downward spiral despite strong sales of videogame titles like “Spore” and “Rock Band 2.” And with a market value of about $7.2 billion–down from $19 billion a few years ago–there’s a chance the company may soon find itself cast as the prey to a larger rival’s predator in a nasty mergers-and-acquisitions turn on its Creatiolutionism game “Spore.”
The high-speed pursuit by Electronic Arts of Take-Two Interactive Software and the bounties of its Grand Theft Auto franchise has ended in a set of flat tires. On Sunday EA (ERTS) dropped its $2 billion tender offer for the rival videogame maker. The company didn’t say exactly what prompted it to end talks with its smaller rival, though presumably it had something to do with Take-Two’s bashing of EA’s $25.74-per-share bid as too low and the company’s acquisition strategy as “mystifying.”
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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