financial posts

After the whole Kane & Lynch fiasco, who takes CNET seriously anymore? CBS does, apparently. In a press release today, the media giant announced that they were offering $11.50 for each outstanding share in CNET, or $1.8 billion in total. CNET owns their own gaming media giant, with GameSpot, GameRankings, Metacritic, and Download.com ranking some of the most popular sites around. The CNET Board of Directors has approved the merger and urges all shareholders to accept the offer for their shares.

The most interesting part to us, however, is the fact that in the release, CBS does not utter the word "games" at all. Apparently, the words "games" or "videogames" are taboo to a multi-national multimedia corporation like CBS. However, "entertainment" is a perfectly fine way to refer to it, even though it could mean books, movies, games, music, or even sports. Can't we at least get an "interactive"?

Vivendi Games, owners of the World of Warcraft franchise, have released their earnings statement for the first quarter of 2008, stating it was a 'Very Good First Quarter'. Specific financial information follows, including the admission of €5.3 billion in revenue, an increase of 5.2% compared to the same time last year.

However, in an almost casually-mentioned fashion, the press release states "Blizzard Entertainment's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2008." This appears before Blizzard has made any official announcement of the expansion's release date.

The Vivendi-Activision merger is still scheduled to be completed by the end of June.

In lieu of the recent announcement of over $30 million in losses this past quarter, THQ has revealed its plan to terminate 200 jobs within its internal studios. Gamasutra reports that CEO Brian Farrell justified the announcement by clarifying the 200 jobless workers focused primarily on "last gen" platforms like the PS2 and plans to add about 300 new employees this fiscal year to studios working on "key products."

To prevent future layoffs, CFO Colin Slade promises THQ will institute a four-stage "greenlight" process to ensure better quality from the publisher's titles. We'd recommend giving the keys to Relic and let them drive anything named Company of Heroes or Dawn of War through the front gates.

[via Joystiq]