The article kind of makes it sound like Take Two is wiling to negotiate, they just want GTA4 to come out first so they have more leverage probably.
EA's motto: We don't make the games you play, we buy them EDIT: Tried to do a BASF thing there and failed a bit
My guess is EA is assuming the game will be huge and want to benefit from it as well as maybe even push even harder. So they underbid where as Take Two knows after the game comes out they will be worth more.
...and then drive them into the ground, only to move on to devour another company so we can continue to be devoid of any originality and or work ethic. I HATE EA.
When I came home and saw this last night, I felt tears of joy -- literally. Even more beautiful than I Am Legend's alternate ending on the Blu-Ray! EA would turn GTA into a "family experience" -- it'd be like The Sims. No thanks.
Not really. What they WOULD do is create a bunch of spinoffs developed outside of the original team; basically, they'd franchise it to death. We'd have everything from GTA5 to Streets of Liberty City (racing game with guest-star rappers) to remakes of the PS2 games (which wouldn't be bad, except that they'd change enough in the remake to have the games be less fun) to crappy sequels to the original trilogy games. Think LCS/VCS, minus the fun. EA wants the GTA brand, and they don't really care if the fun comes along for the ride.