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The New York Times wrote an interesting piece on how Dr. Pepper is using a professional gamer, Tom Taylor (aka, Tsquared) to promote it’s Dr. Pepper line.   DP also signed up his crew, Str8 Rippin.  

Honestly, I have to say it’s kinda cool.   While there’s the risk of being labeled a sellout or “gone corporate” if it’s the right brand (i.e, one with street credibility), it just puts the person/group on another level.  

For example, NO ONE would think twice of Red Bull sponsoring James “Bubba” Stewart, mega motocross racer.  

But I think it’s cool for gamers to come to the forefront.  Video games are massive business.  EA alone has revenue of $3.7 billion (with a “B”).   Activision, the next biggest, is not too far behind with about $2.8 billion thanks to a few blockbuster games and acqusitions (both numbers are from fiscal 2008…2009 revs s/b  be much higher)…by the way, I mentioned on TechMediums.com that video games tend to be much better positioned to work through recessions than many other companies.

Well, it looked inevitable.  EA has FINALLY backed off of it’s, seemingly longstanding desired of EA to plow it’s seed into the fertile soil of Take-Two (yuk – for visual, but that’s the way TTWO felt).

It was inevitable.  TTWO, for 8 months, said “I’m not ready”, probably because of it’s vows of chastity.  EA, the ever present jock, was like “Come on, baby.  I’m the captain of the football team, and all-state.”

TTWO’s stock hit the skids today, as would be expected, when a suitor pulls out of a bid.

EA is yet another company who continued to get spurned by a smaller, high-profile company.  The other, of course, being Microsoft.

It’s like the rich dude who keeps begging the cute chick to go out with him, thinking that with all his wealth and star-power, she should just say yes.  In this case, EA is the rich dude, and Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) is the cute chick. 

Well, she’s ridiculously hot because she’s got one of the best bodies – the enormously popular Grand Theft Auto franchise. 

But after extending its offer for Take-Two, again (4^th time), EA’s offer was rejected, again.  Still too low for Take-Two. 

Initially, Take-Two wanted to wait until GTA had been officially released to see if it could drive increased sales and value. 

So far, not-so-good.  Sales are high, but since the debut of GTA on April 29, Take-Two’s stock has actually gone slightly down -.5%.  In the last three months, Take-Two’s stock is only up 4%, having fallen off quite a bit in the last few weeks.

So maybe EA is saying, “Look babe, I know you’re hot.  You know you have a killer body.  But you can’t pull any other dudes with my looks, intelligence and wealth.  So I’ll wait, but let’s stop fooling around and make it happen.”

Take-Two is giving EA the “It’s not you.  It’s me.”, routine.

It’s actually kinda funny. 

Release Dates
US: April 29, 2008
Europe: April 29, 2008
Japan: April 29, 2008
Australia: April 29, 2008

There’s so much buzz going around that it’s buzzonkers.  Announced a long time ago in a galaxy…(uh, yeah) – this one’s prolly gonna crush Halo 3’s records, which was $300 million and 5 million units in the FIRST week.

“I’m not a player, I just crush a lot” – rapper, Big Pun.  Fitting, given the expectations.

Expectations – $400 million in the first week. 

Unlike Halo 3, which was released on Xbox360 only, GTA is being released on multiple platforms, thereby expanding the potential overall sales.  Since EA is making a move to grab Take-Two, the maker of GTA under TTWO’s Rock-Star brand, there’s some need for TTWO to show such strong sales to entice EA to increase it’s offer or downright encourage stockholders to reject the tender offer (FTC also is a little skeptical).

Here’s an excerpt of the interview that IGN.com had with Rockstar’s VP of Creative, Dan Houser, and Rockstar North Art Director Aaron Garbut.  The interview is excellent, check out the rest here. 

 IGN: Do you think the heightened realism is going to make the anti-GTA politicians even more vocal?

Garbut: I think regardless of how the game looked or what it contained the politicians [would] be just as vocal. GTA is an easy target for politicians and journalists to pick on. It doesn’t really matter what we do or don’t do. It’s an open experience that allows players to do as they choose in a realistic environment. As these sorts of games become more and more sophisticated and the choices and abilities open to the players increases it will become easier and easier to sensationalize a particular aspect of it and at the same time become more and more ridiculous [about it].We’re seeing it already with the drinking in the game. There is no drunk driving minigame, there’s just drinking and getting drunk. Combine this with the ability to enter cars in the game and people are able to drive drunk, but that’s a choice they have made based on the abilities we have made available to them. It’s just as valid for them to walk home, but that doesn’t make for such interesting headlines.I seem to be ranting but my point is we don’t allow what…a politician might think to be an issue. We just make a game that is as good as we can make and as beautiful as we can make. I really loathe the idea of self censorship.

What’s fascinating is that I’ve had former 40+ year old co-workers talk about how they were playing GTA for hours after putting the kids to bed and picking fights with local gangs…and what it felt like being marked (one guy is from North Jersey, so that that into account J).  But it speaks to the wide following GTA has with hard core gamers and passive folk. 

IGN also did a good history expose too – pretty cool.