Electronic Arts, Not the White Knight

EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello, the man who wants to start a revolution at Electronic Arts, has recently made a very interesting comment regarding the offer of his company to take over Take Two and, implicitly, game developer Rockstar. The New York Times has him on record as saying "We, in many ways, represent a white knight [to Rockstar]".

So this is how it is: Rockstar is the pure maiden in distress, running around while stepping on its own dress, who is hunted down by the dark husband that is Take Two, while the handsome knight called Electronic Arts is trying to overthrow the husband and then re-marry the damsel. Does something feel weird in the above description? Several analysts seem to think that Rockstar is not a pushover and certainly doesn't need EA to be a better game studio.

Three games industry analysts have offered opinion on Riccitiello's comments, while talking to GameDaily, and they all disagree with him. Mike Hickey of Janco Partners was pretty frank with his statement. He said: "My belief is Rockstar would be perfectly happy if EA never put a bid in at all. White knight commentary is total bulls**t, and disrespectful to both the developers at TTWO and the new management team that has already achieved success."

David Col, from DFC Intelligence, thinks Rockstar have no real distribution problems, this being the only segment where EA could help. To him, it is all about whether "EA is a white knight for Take-Two shareholders by offering to pay them the maximum value they feel they can get" and Rockstar is not in any way involved in shareholder matters.

Michael Pachter, a renowned game industry watcher, is more blunt and says that EA "are in no sense a White Knight". But he underscores the fact that the GTA intellectual property is actually not Rockstar's, but rather Take Two's, so the hostile takeover Electronic Arts is attempting might very well be aimed at seizing that IP rather than Rockstar itself.