Who am I disgusted at? A lot of the people here at Gamespot. While I perfectly understand the disdain for EA, it seems that Take Two is getting a "free pass" from many people here, or they're simply ignorant as to what's been going on.
As a result, Oppenheimer Funds and FMR LLC (Fidelity Management and Research LLC) have both slashed their ownership in Take Two. Both companies are involved with insurance, retirement services and benefits, etc.; not the type of companies that want to ever see their investments go downhill (and neither should you!).
Another consequence is Take Two is being sued by their shareholders. Partly because they attempted to hide the purchase offer, but also because the management of Take Two, ZelnickMedia, has had very recent amendments to it that only benefit ZelnickMedia. In the event of a buy-out, ZelnickMedia's pay would go from $3.8 million to $16.5 million. So bought out or not, ZelnickMedia is going to be making out absurdly well. On top of that, they're giving the company's executives an extremely generous severance plan; 1.5 times their salary for 18 months plus bonuses if fired within a year? Compare that with the up to 6-months they're giving non-executives.
All of this is apparently meaningless compared to the fact Electronic Arts is the company desiring to acquire them. We're all familiar with the post-Trip Hawkins EA of recent history. Larry Probst is gone, John Riccitiello is back and is trying to head the company in a new direction. He realizes there's a problem with annual updates, he's restructuring EA internally so studios are more autonomous, and he's even questioning the current revenue model the console game industry has been running on for decades. He's changing things enough that Bioware and Pandemic didn't reject EA's purchasing offer - something Riccitiello himself helped orchestrate. Riccitiello even acknowledged that EA "blew it" when it came to past acquisitions like Bullfrog, Origin and Westwood.
I'm not an EA fan, but looking at things as they are now? I'm far more willing to give EA and John Riccitello a chance than trust Take Two's current management. I realize a lot of you may have more than a few negative feelings about EA, but if you honestly think Take Two is some innocent underdog about to get gobbled up by a big, mean ol' EA, you need to go and read up on what's happening. There here and now is different from "back then"; learn from history, but don't let it blind you.