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Technology Stocks : GTIS - Will it be a Phoenix or not ? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RJC2006 who wrote (2241)	7/12/1999 11:29:00 PM
From: Mahatmabenfoo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2319

> buying companies was the last thing they should have > done. Not that their heart wasn't in the right place You may be right, but I don't get it. When GT's stock was high, buying companies for stock was like getting them for free. At least some of those acquisitions must have looked good at the time -- weren't you high on GT yourself at the time? I'd be interested to see a list of those acquisitions, and to see which were for stock and which for cash, and which of them worked out, or may yet work out... > combine Penthouse with Duke Nukem. Real smart move there I didn't follow that story, but what are you saying -- that it injured the DN franchise long term (unlikely)? or that it injured sales of non-Penthouse DN in the short term (also unlikely if the Penthouse event was long after the release)? In any event, that has got to be a very small part of what laid GT so low. Something laid it low, I just don't get what... - Charles

To: RJC2006 who wrote (2241)	7/13/1999 7:58:00 PM
From: Scott Miller	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2319

>>> Actually Charles, buying companies was the last thing they should have done. Not that their heart wasn't in the right place but they could have helped themselves out by at least buying companies that had something out worth buying. Their most significant purchase attempt fell through namely Microprose which went on to be picked up for about 1/4 of the price GT had offered. <<< GT bought FormGen and WizardWorks which proved very positive. Same with Reflections (makers of the superhit, Driver), and Legend (Wheel of Time, and Unreal 2). SingleTrac hasn't panned out, but at the time it looked like a smart move because of SingleTrac's track record. They also bought 50% of OddWorld, which has been around breakeven so far, but with two major OddWorld games coming this should be a future positive. There's been a few problems with the OddWorld franchise that, had those developers had more experience, could have avoided, like the poor save feature of the first game, and the stupid idea of having a character with a straped-shut mouth (the straps should have come off at the end of the first game). GT's buying of companies--other than the incredibly misguided purchase of OneZero, which was not part of GT's core business and could only hurt their focus as a game publisher--has not been so bad relative to other publishers' similar activities. I think a much bigger problem is the poor quality of games GT has released (due to not taking sufficient time to properly develop these games), and the poor selection of games to release in the first place. GT has also failed to develop a franchise property that can spawn numerous money-in-the-bank sequels, other than a budgetware title, Deer Hunter. Look at the other top publishers and they have golden franchises: Eidos has Tomb Raider; EA has their EA Sports series and Ultima series; Activision owns a backlog of recognizable hit titles from the 80's, like Battlezone, Zork, and many more; Micosoft has Age of Empires, Flight Simulator and Windows! What front line title does GT have that's money in the bank other than maybe TA (though probably second fiddle to Blizzard's RTSs and the C&C franchise) and Driver (off to a great start!)? >>> Also remember that this is the same management team that came up with the brilliant idea to combine Penthouse with Duke Nukem. Real smart move there. Nothing like trashing a prime market. <<< This has had no negative effect on GT or the Duke franchise as far as I've seen. You're trying to build a mountain with a handful of dirt. ;~) Scott