I am a failure as a reporter, as I completely missed the true story behind this dramatic acquisition bid tale. I wish I could take credit for the following, but this is actually a comment by SVGLer Noc that I thought was so "So it turns out that GTA IV isn't ready for release. The production is in shambles, and the team barely has a working prototype ready. All of the previews and demos we've seen are the entirely fabricated facade of a group desperately working to maintain the fiction of a game that doesn't exist. And it's all going smoothly . . . until EA enters the equation.
If EA takes over, they'll find out about the real state of GTA IV. And everyone's careers will be over. So Zelnick hatches a daring plan, to stall until the "release" date . . . when the company can sell millions of blank packages, akin to the infamous Star Wars "Empty Box" campaign.
Zelnick plans to use the money to slip away to a secret manor in the Caribbean. The day after GTA IV's release, he'll escape . . . with Riccitiello's wife. There's an affair involved, and EA's involvement with Take 2 is driven by Riccitiello's suspicions, and his desire to crush everything Zelnick holds dear.
Of course, EA's stockholders want him to keep the Take 2 properties as is, with the same teams producing quality games with a bigger budget. But Riccitiello is determined to wipe Zelnick's legacy off the face of the planet, and manipulates primary shareholders to set them at each other's throats and keep them distracted while he goes about his schemes.
The whole thing comes down to a gunfight on the sixth floor of a parking garage, when Riccitiello confronts the fleeing couple as they're about to drive to the airport. One of Riccitiello's goons (Of course he's got goons) takes a shot at Zelnick, but the EA man's wife throws herself in the way, and is fatally wounded. Gunshots ensue, as does a fistfight between Riccitiello and Zelnick.
Will the wife survive? Will Zelnick keep his grip, or will he plummet six stories to the street below? What was in the GTA IV box?
Find out next time, on Dangerous Games: The True Story of Love, Lies, and Lewts in the Video Game Industry."
..Thanks, Noc.
[Obligatory disclaimer for the humor-immune: This is a joke. It is not real. I don't warrant this as true. Hell, I didn't even write it. Nobody sue SVGL please.]
