Support NeoGAF

[gabbo]

God no. I thought they were owned by an outside PC hardware and publishing company that was relatively powerful in its region

 

[Staf]

Fuck. It's EA isn't it? Fuck. God damnit it's gonna be Bioware decline all over again. Everyone hurry, form a protective circle around Obsidian and Larian!

Spoiler

Fuck

 

[A-V-B]

Didn't we suspect this would happen when they decided to go public? I wish them the best of luck in protecting their company.

 

[scarybore]

This is similar to Activision with all of the IPs they had. They could make whatever video game they felt like but it's limited to games since say for example Sony owns the movie rights for spiderman

Wrong. Before development on TW1 even began, CD Projekt bought the IP completely from Metropolis Software (And then later bought Metropolis), who themselves had bought the IP from Sapkowski back in the 90's.

Got ya, all makes sense then.

 

[theecakee]

That would really suck.

 

[Phamit]

Can someone explain to me how hostile takeovers are legal? It seems like all it does is screw over smaller (but still big) companies.

If you offer over half of your company in Stock on the Free Market obviously some can Buy All of it, it's the risk of going Public

 

[InquisitorAles]

I'm okay with this

 

[LordofPwn]

seems more pre-emptive than anything. i bet someone at their offices were talking about Ubisoft and being like, "that would never happen to us, right?" someone else checks the numbers... "O shit, maybe we should buy some of our stock back."

 

[OdysseusVA]

How many shares can I purchase with 10 US DOLLARS

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

In b4 we find out who it is, today at BlizzCon

 

[Grief.exe]

This may be overblown to be honest, I don't see CD Projekt being that valuable to a large company.

They are profitable, but they are currently targeting console/PC AAA, which is a market set to stagnate over the next decade. They also don't have any huge mobile properties or any massive competitive PC cash cows that target western markets as well as Asain markets, with an emphasis towards the latter.

 

[A-V-B]

To be honest, I don't see CD Projekt being that valuable to a large company. They are profitable, but they are currently targeting console/PC AAA, which is a market set to stagnate over the next decade. They also don't have any huge mobile properties or any massive competitive PC cash cows that target western markets as well as Asain markets.

Besides Witcher, maybe someone's looking to start their own digital store front or something, and they like GOG's good will.

 

[Candescence]

See, this is why Valve stays private. You don't have to answer to idiotic short-term-thinking shareholders and you don't face the risk of being forcibly bought out if you don't go public. Fuckin' stock market.

 

[Obliterator]

This may be overblown to be honest, I don't see CD Projekt being that valuable to a large company.

They are profitable, but they are currently targeting console/PC AAA, which is a market set to stagnate over the next decade. They also don't have any huge mobile properties or any massive competitive PC cash cows that target western markets as well as Asain markets.

AAA gaming is doing the exact opposite of stagnating. It's a bigger game than it has been in the entire history of the industry

 

[CertifiedFP]

God no. I thought they were owned by an outside PC hardware and publishing company that was relatively powerful in its region

Yeah, its name is CD Projekt, and it's a publicly traded company.

 

[boskee]

How many shares can I purchase with 10 US DOLLARS

1 share at the current rate. Keep saving money, because there's another 95 819 999 shares to buy.

 

[afternoon delight]

In b4 we find out who it is, today at BlizzCon

 

[Amauri14]

Hope it's ea

 

[boskee]

Yeah, its name is CD Projekt, and it's a publicly traded company.

No. CD Projekt is the game publisher that started CD Projekt Red and GOG, then sold off all of its publishing business. It took over a nearly defunct publicly traded company called Optimus and renamed it back to CD Projekt. Technically speaking it was Optimus that bought CD Projekt, but paid with its own shares, which gave CD Projekt's owners majority stake in the company. They then rebranded it back to CD Projekt.

 

[Joco]

Hopefully this is just the company taking some precautionary actions without there actually being a takeover threat at the moment. Maybe the Ubisoft/Vivendi situation has been a sort of wake up call.

That's what I'm hoping, anyway. After how good The Witcher 3 was I'd like CD Projekt to be able to make games without interference for a long time.

 

[stan423321]

See, this is why Valve stays private. You don't have to answer to idiotic short-term-thinking shareholders and you don't face the risk of being forcibly bought out if you don't go public. Fuckin' stock market.

The thing is, they're not idiotic most of the time, they just completely don't care about your future, they want their cash now. Which is not that different, but explains basically everything about the stock market.

 

[Ralemont]

I'm not arguing whether such a venture would be profitable for a large company, nor am I arguing that those methods aren't monetarily effective. Throwing the widest net possible and streamlining content, narrative, and mechanics are extremely effective. I'm arguing from CD Projects perspective and from their current target market's perspective, which includes GOG.

The changes brought on by EA caused the founders of Bioware to leave the industry entirely along with at least of plurality of talent at Bioware. Along with any chance of Bioware crafting a game that will stand the test of time going forward. The latter is somewhat subjective, but I highly doubt we will be seeing a "LTTP: Dragon Age Inquisition" in a decade.

If Bioware was having money issues at the time, then hats off to them for getting the most money out of the deal before exiting the industry, but CD Project is solvent and largely independent currently.

CDPR wouldn't benefit much from an acquisition by a larger company, on that much we agree. Not that EA would change a whole lot because CDPR already targets the same demographic that modern BioWare does: Cinematic Action-RPG players. Obsidian they ain't.

If you're attempting to analyze BioWare's health, you should be talking about its profitability and growth, as its one of the only objective metrics by which a company's health can be understood. I get the feeling we aren't really talking about their health here at all though.

 

[Grief.exe]

AAA gaming is doing the exact opposite of stagnating. It's a bigger game than it has been in the entire history of the industry

The key point here was the decade.

The console AAA industry hasn't been expanding the tent demographically, with the current sales largely being frontloaded to existing demographics that are on the decline. Look to see a decline starting soon and continually stagnating.
Publishers aren't currently investigating in this status quo, they are all currently shifting to different markets. Similar reason to seeing both Sony and Xbox releasing refreshes to maximize their profits in the current market, rather than betting on a reduced market in a decade.

 

[boskee]

See, this is why Valve stays private. You don't have to answer to idiotic short-term-thinking shareholders and you don't face the risk of being forcibly bought out if you don't go public. Fuckin' stock market.

Sure, but CD Projekt had no choice. They didn't want to go public, but it was either that or going bust after the financial trouble they found themselves in.

 

[OdysseusVA]

1 share at the current rate. Keep saving money, because there's another 95 819 999 shares to buy.

Nearly there!

 

[carlsojo]

soooo who wants to add me on origin? i want to get a decent friends list started for the multiplayer in witcher 4.

 

[Nordicus]

Didn't CDProjekt have most of its stocks tied to its current founders? Wouldn't that make hostile takeovers really difficult?

 

[banefirelord]

Perhaps I'm naive, but jumping from semi-vague board meeting talking points to "CD Projekt's corpse is already moldering in Vivendi/Konami/EA's basement" seems a bit alarmist.

 

[Easy_D]

Aren't you glad they prepared you for GoG shutting down forever already? Will take the sting out of when it happens for real.

Seriously though, best of luck to the people at CDProjekt and no matter what happens, I hope they can continue on like nothing happened.

Perhaps I'm naive, but jumping from semi-vague board meeting talking points to "CD Projekt's corpse is already moldering in Vivendi/Konami/EA's basement" seems a bit alarmist.

Because the videogame industry has so many shining examples of hostile takeovers that went over well for the company being bought out

 

[boskee]

Didn't CDProjekt have most of its stocks tied to its current founders? Wouldn't that make hostile takeovers really difficult?

Founders own 24%, another person closely connected to CDP has 6% and various employees also hold some stock, but I won't be able to tell you how much as each of them would need to control 5% to show up on the list

But yeah, probably between 35-40%

 

[Zolo]

EA finally realized Bioware wasn't the biggest cinematic RPG maker around.

 

[Sou Da]

Perhaps I'm naive, but jumping from semi-vague board meeting talking points to "CD Projekt's corpse is already moldering in Vivendi/Konami/EA's basement" seems a bit alarmist.

alarmists in any thread pertaining to WRPGs? Nah.

 

[carlsojo]

EA finally realized Bioware wasn't the biggest cinematic RPG maker around.

who is? bethesda?

 

[boskee]

Perhaps I'm naive, but jumping from semi-vague board meeting talking points to "CD Projekt's corpse is already moldering in Vivendi/Konami/EA's basement" seems a bit alarmist.

Agreed. I doubt any take over is actually going to happen, however the proposed changes are clear countermeasures against any potential takeover.

 

[AmFreak]

Can someone explain to me how hostile takeovers are legal? It seems like all it does is screw over smaller (but still big) companies.

The moment you go public and put shares on the market, you are selling (a part of) your company. In a hostile takeover another company is just buying enough shares off the market to get the majority.
If you want to prevent such a thing don't go public or retain the majority (>50%) of the shares.

 

[OdysseusVA]

who is? bethesda?

RPG
So no

 

[timberger]

Sounds like CDPR will soon have a fight on their hands... which is terrible news for them considering how bad they are at combat.

 

[Kyrios]

Crap...

 

[Coreda]

Sounds like CDPR will soon have a fight on their hands... which is terrible news for them considering how bad they are at combat.

Now this, this is how you make an amusing yet critical post.

 

[Cartho]

Just imagine if it was Konami. PACHINKO PLOUGHING!

 

[Ouroboros]

Is there anything we as fans can do to help stop this?

 

[banefirelord]

But what if this is actually the best timeline and they wind up merging with Paradox instead and get given the White Wolf Publishing IPs to play with?

Spoiler

(I am aware that Paradox doesn't have the cash)

 

[Cyborg]

Thats why its a bad idea to have stakeholders in this industry. They will always choose the money instead of what is the best for the company, they want to cash-in!

Always be in controle!

 

[stan423321]

God no. I thought they were owned by an outside PC hardware and publishing company that was relatively powerful in its region

Emphasis on WAS. Optimus, the PC company, that I guess also distributed some software, was brought down by a tax lawsuit very long time ago, I don't even know how the lawsuit ended, all I remember is that it all started with a terrible tax bracket clause which somehow made it profitable to sell PCs to CzechR/Slovakia and buy them back. CDP just took Optimus's legal corpse to get onto stock market faster than normally allowed, this is a known stock market trick with a Wikipedia article or something.

In parallel, CDP started as Polish game import republisher. The distribution business was then spun off into a separate child company cdp.pl when Witcher and GOG took off and game distribution business tanked a little. CDP owned only ~8% cdp.pl last time I checked. The localization business has probably folded into CDPR writing team if it ever was a constant thing instead of a hire-and-forget business - the foreign businesses were primarily interested in games being thoroughly localized so that CDP could cut the prices without risk of Germans and such importing, now they switched to charging Poland roughly the same price as Germany instead. Cdp.pl has since opened a web store, including a key reselling service, and started carrying different products such as trading cards.

 

[LordRaptor]

The thing is, they're not idiotic most of the time, they just completely don't care about your future, they want their cash now. Which is not that different, but explains basically everything about the stock market.

You took a very different moral away from the fable about the goose that laid the golden eggs than I did

 

[GameAddict411]

It's very sad if one of the big publishers takes over. The quality of their games will drop significantly and a lot of talent will bleed to other gaming studios.

 

[Exploratory]

MGS GWENT

Shit why did you say this?

Shit man.

Shit!

I want this now. And I'll never ever get it.

 

[Filthy Casual]

Goodbye my lover

 

[KorrZ]

This is the worst case scenario

 

[Lightning_Roller]

I hope CDPR defends against this. They do well on their own and are a great company.