As I said before (when my thread was unceremoniously deleted) Funcom is being bought out by EA or Activision.

http://www.funcom.com/investors/funcom_initiates_review_of_strategic_alternatives

Following completion and launch of the modern-day, 
massively multiplayer online game, 'The Secret 
World', Funcom N.V. has retained ABG Sundal Collier 
and GP Bullhound to undertake a broad review of the 
strategic options available to the company. Funcom 
will update shareholders and other stakeholders about 
the outcome of the review and potential other 
developments in due course.

GP Bullhound is the merger firm, and Sundal Collier is probably the financing catalyst.  


Should not less than a year for the buyout to happen, as I reported earlier.

Edit:  For those less familiar with mergers and acquisitions, you would not bring on both the bank and the merger company unless you had serious buyers.  If you were merely scoping the market out, Funcom would have only hired GP Bullhound.  This means a buyout is imminent.

And on that note, Funcom is priced at an all-time low of 1.36 today (25 cents U.S. per share).  There should be no question that the company will be purchased for more than this:  makes its purchase a no brainer as a stock.

And this is from someone who has shorted the company twice in 4.5 years (wow time flies).

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Originally posted by muffins89
im curious as to why you think EA or Activision would be interested in such a horrible idea.

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Originally posted by Kenze

 

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Originally posted by muffins89
im curious as to why you think EA or Activision would be interested in such a horrible idea.

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I'm thinking Frogster or GamersFirst

 

possibly Nexon?  cant see ea or activision doing this. 

Originally posted by muffins89
im curious as to why you think EA or Activision would be interested

Because Funcom are the best and most innovative game developers on the planet, also they have the best MMO engine ever developed.

AoC is great, TSW is even better, Anarchy Online was the best SciFi MMO ever and gets a graphic update soon.

I´d buy them if I were Activision.

Or even better DISNEY should buy them, and give them a liscense to make a Star Wars MMO

No they aren't selling. They are doing fine. Nevermind TSW failed horribly in sales according to Funcom themselves , I like the game thus everything is fine and /covers ear nahh nahh nahh nahh.

That about cover the head in sand crowd who refuses to see the writing on the wall for Funcom ?

Like i said about 3 weeks ago, it is EA or Activision. 

Inside information from an employee there.

My warning before when my thread was deleted was that it was "pure speculation". 

I would hope the mods would read and see that GP Bullhound is a merger firm ONLY...and would only be hired if Funcom was on cusp of being acquired.

The fact that the financing instrument (the bank) is involved also (two expensive retainers) is additional conclusive proof.  An offer has been made and now it is a matter of whom it was, and whether it will be accepted.

The only difficulty is convincing the major shareholders to take a 85-95% hit on their original investment.  I would hazard a buyout of more than 2.50 NOK is not going to happen, resulting in at least an 80% loss since going public.

One would hope that Gamersfirst takes them over.. But realisticly, I see EA or even possibly Sony grabbing those IP's (I bet Sony is more interested in just obtaining the Secret World IP because it seems much like the game they were looking to make in The Agency which never quite made it)

Maybe even Perfect World? lol.. nahh.. Can't see that..

TSW is now profitable (source go google yourself)

TSW is not going F2P anytime soon (source go google yourself)

As a handful of people here you would like every title on the planet fail and go F2P - this one is not.

Even AoC is not F2P by the way, the expansions are the coolest content and that is not for free

Originally posted by FromHell

TSW is now profitable (source go google yourself)

TSW is not going F2P anytime soon (source go google yourself)

As a handful of people here you would like every title on the planet fail and go F2P - this one is not.

Even AoC is not F2P by the way, the expansions are the coolest content and that is not for free

 TSW is not profitable.  My source is Funcom's actual financial reports. 

TSW will go f2p when the new company decides it should go.  The developers obviously will have no say in it.  

TSW already failed:  it is Funcom's last MMORPG and last game developed solely by the company.  That is the epitomy of fail.

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Originally posted by FromHell

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Originally posted by muffins89 im curious as to why you think EA or Activision would be interested

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Because Funcom are the best and most innovative game developers on the planet, also they have the best MMO engine ever developed.

AoC is great, TSW is even better, Anarchy Online was the best SciFi MMO ever and gets a graphic update soon.

I´d buy them if I were Activision.

Or even better DISNEY should buy them, and give them a liscense to make a Star Wars MMO

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Originally posted by FromHell

TSW is now profitable (source go google yourself)

TSW is not going F2P anytime soon (source go google yourself)

Baghdad Bob says you beat him to it:

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=FUNCOM.OL+Interactive#symbol=funcom.ol;range=6m;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

TSW certainly has boosted Funcom's financials in the 6 months it's been out.

Originally posted by FromHell

TSW is now profitable (source go google yourself)

TSW is not going F2P anytime soon (source go google yourself)

As a handful of people here you would like every title on the planet fail and go F2P - this one is not.

Even AoC is not F2P by the way, the expansions are the coolest content and that is not for free

They why ohhh why did their stocks plummet?  Why did their lead story writer which why many catered ot the game go somewhere else and became a "consultant"?  Why is it that they are being bought out now?  Why did they have layoffs, maybe even multiple layoffs if I recall right? 

If TSW was so successful then all these things would not have happened.  In several of my multi-MMOs guild has TSW been moved to active games which means small amounts of people of the guild play it.

All F2P MMOs typically charge for their expansions, look up Turbine's expansions.  It's not hard for MMOs to be profitable, the question is if it is profitable enough to the shareholders/execs.

Originally posted by Ambros123

Originally posted by FromHell

TSW is now profitable (source go google yourself)

TSW is not going F2P anytime soon (source go google yourself)

As a handful of people here you would like every title on the planet fail and go F2P - this one is not.

Even AoC is not F2P by the way, the expansions are the coolest content and that is not for free

They why ohhh why did their stocks plummet?  Why did their lead story writer which why many catered ot the game go somewhere else and became a "consultant"?  Why is it that they are being bought out now?  Why did they have layoffs, maybe even multiple layoffs if I recall right? 

If TSW was so successful then all these things would not have happened.  In several of my multi-MMOs guild has TSW been moved to active games which means small amounts of people of the guild play it.

All F2P MMOs typically charge for their expansions, look up Turbine's expansions.  It's not hard for MMOs to be profitable, the question is if it is profitable enough to the shareholders/execs.

Because FC doesn't make fast food mmos like WOW and GW2 for mass consumption. AO, AOC, TSW though had their problems but atleast FC tries not to make MMOS which are solely made to beat WOW.

I could care less who buys FC and if these MMOS didn't sell in millions because AO and TSW are brilliant and innovative MMOS which will always have its dedicated playerbase.

Originally posted by Whitebeards

Originally posted by Ambros123

Originally posted by FromHell

TSW is now profitable (source go google yourself)

TSW is not going F2P anytime soon (source go google yourself)

As a handful of people here you would like every title on the planet fail and go F2P - this one is not.

Even AoC is not F2P by the way, the expansions are the coolest content and that is not for free

They why ohhh why did their stocks plummet?  Why did their lead story writer which why many catered ot the game go somewhere else and became a "consultant"?  Why is it that they are being bought out now?  Why did they have layoffs, maybe even multiple layoffs if I recall right? 

If TSW was so successful then all these things would not have happened.  In several of my multi-MMOs guild has TSW been moved to active games which means small amounts of people of the guild play it.

All F2P MMOs typically charge for their expansions, look up Turbine's expansions.  It's not hard for MMOs to be profitable, the question is if it is profitable enough to the shareholders/execs.

Because FC doesn't make fast food mmos like WOW and GW2 for mass consumption. AO, AOC, TSW though had their problems but atleast FC tries not to make MMOS which are solely made to beat WOW.

I could care less who buys FC and if these MMOS didn't sell in millions because AO and TSW are brilliant and innovative MMOS which will always have its dedicated playerbase.

yeah, funcom always had a thing for doing something of their own, not just copy/pasting the flavor of the year game,, they always go for a unique setting ( ao was one of the very few sci fi mmos for a decade ), and while they simplified post ao they're still beating most games avaible on the market (imo),,,

just wish they'd finally finished the new engine for ao - from my personal subjective point of view, its the best fking game ever

Because FC doesn't make fast food mmos like WOW and GW2 for mass consumption. AO, AOC, TSW though had their problems but atleast FC tries not to make MMOS which are solely made to beat WOW.

I could care less who buys FC and if these MMOS didn't sell in millions because AO and TSW are brilliant and innovative MMOS which will always have its dedicated playerbase.

This is only true to some degree. AO was a disaster at release. Got patched and was great till Shadow Lands, when it became a disaster once again. AoC was buggy as hell, lacked content and was overall incomplete at its release.

Funcom have or had a great creative team, but thats about it. I hope its not EA, who buys em.