L.A. Noire sees Take-Two shares soar

By Tom Phillips Published 18 May, 2011

Murder on the trading floor.

Dark detective title L.A. Noire has already made a killing for Rockstar financial overlords Take-Two Interactive.

An initial round of roaring review scores has sent Take-Two stock skyrocketing to a 32-month high.

Shares rose 7.75 per cent to $17.10, the highest since EA flirted with acquiring Take-Two in September 2008, Gamasutra reports.

Analysts have predicted sales in excess of four million.

Plenty of possible DLC has been spotted, along with a paid-for Rockstar Pass to keep the coffers filling after the game launches.

L.A. Noire is currently sitting on a superb Metacritic average of 91.

Oli Welsh combed the game for an 8/10 in Eurogamer's L.A. Noire review, calling its virtual Los Angeles, 1947 setting "bizarre, threatening and fascinating."

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (22) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • slickster #1 1 year ago

    Come on friday i so want this game. :o(

  • adofessex #2 1 year ago

    So releasing solid titles with fresh ideas, when they are ready, really isn't a bad thing. Maybe some other publishers can take note... *Looks Activisions way*

  • davisorle #3 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:15 09-05-2012

  • Sodding_Gamer #4 1 year ago

    @adofessex

    Amen to that mate. With a bit of time, you get quality games.

  • Tryhard #5 1 year ago

    Got to feel for those shareholders.

  • YailBloor #6 1 year ago

    Does anyone know what the Rockstar pass is yet?

  • Sodding_Gamer #7 1 year ago

    @Yailbloor

    I'm still not certain but the majority of people think it's just like the Cerberus access on ME2 or VIP access on BFBC2. You just get free stuff for buying the game brand new or pre-ordering. If you get it second hand you pay 800mp or £6.50 or whatever it is for access to more cases on the download.... I think! Or at least I hope so!

  • X201 #8 1 year ago

    @YailBloor

    Rockstar haven't announced it yet. Only comment so far is that they will announce it "soon"

  • Golgo #9 1 year ago

    Blessed be the shareholders.

  • schnide #10 1 year ago

    What's with the shareholder hate?

  • Golgo #11 1 year ago

    ^ Why?

    1. creative industries that are hamstrung by needing to provide shareholder dividends above everything else are often less creative.
    2. Shareholders are not interested in great games, only great profits.

    1 + 2 = Activision

  • schnide #12 1 year ago

    @Golgo

    Er right, okay then. Let's do away with the shareholders who help provide the money in the first place. What we'll do is have art that exists for arts sake, which doesn't need to source any money up front to develop nor recoup to feed the artists in the first place. Show me the way to this Utopia and buy me a one way ticket..

    You can idealise yourself as this small, insignficant gamer who wants to support the titles you love with what? Love and flowers? And everyone else as the big bad shareholders but that just isn't the way the world works. If you have a better model, let me know. Great products can still make great money, and just because you don't like it that investors consider massmarket dross a safer bet with their money (which they don't want to lose any more than you do) than arty titles which might never make it back, doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense. What you've also completely failed to notice is that Take Two have just released a game that's been universally acclaimed and their share price has soared - which is exactly why this article exists.

    In the meantime, you're perfectly able to open a share trading account on the internet within several days and buy shares in Take Two, or any other company on the stockmarket, just like millions of others have done. And you don't see that many hippies making great profits, or great games.

  • MrChuckles #13 1 year ago

    @schnide - Where have you been, we all know developers should make games with their own money, be innovative and risky, have long development cycles to make the game as new and polished and bug free as possible, be triple A quality, don't monetise their games, don't do DLC and release for £10.

    Anything else makes them evil.

  • Golgo #14 1 year ago

    @schnide:

    Even though you've worked yourself up into a totally unnecessary and near-hysterical hissy fit and clearly need to have a nice sit down, I believe that everything you say is true. That said, I believe the same of the points made in my post (which - strangely - you chose not to address). It's a conundrum, isn't it?

  • Inmediasress #15 1 year ago

    @schnide

    Honestly the biggest problem of the game industry is that it is an industry in the first place.
    I never say they should work for free but by aiming only to please share holders, by mass producing games and living of their former golry names in the case of ceartain old dev groups, they just only bring boring stagnating games to the masses.
    You see I don't mind waiting for 3 years for a good game rather than 3 games that are a carbon copy of the first one.
    Unfortunately the shareholders don't like waiting.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 18/05/11 @ 13:59

  • Soton4084 #16 1 year ago

    Good. Hopefully this means that the rumours of Activision taking over Take-two will never come to fruition. I shudder at the thought of how they would destroy Rockstar and milk the GTA franchise for all it's worth.

  • schnide #17 1 year ago

    @Golgo

    I thought I addressed them clearly enough but to be thoroughly specific:

    "1. creative industries that are hamstrung by needing to provide shareholder dividends above everything else are often less creative."

    And do you work for a wage or can you afford to sit and make potato prints of whatever you like all day? You say that like it's exclusive. What isn't hamstrung by financial concerns? Without Activision, Call of Duty wouldn't exist. They make lots of money because most people don't care about great games, but I don't see you going after the masses that actually buy these products - is it because they don't have lots of money for you to resent?

    "2. Shareholders are not interested in great games, only great profits."

    Well I can tell you from personal experience you're wrong. As I say, you're perfectly capable of opening your own sharetrading account and putting your own money on the line. If you do, I'd like to know which big-budget original IP you're going to invest in that's unlikely to ever make its money back.

  • Golgo #18 1 year ago

    @Schnide: unfortunately there is nothing "thoroughly specific" about your response. My points were simple. Read, for example, the words: "often less creative." Not always, not necessarily, but often. Do you deny this? You come back with the line: "You say that like it's exclusive." No, I do not. Yes I do work for a living (thankyou for asking!), in a creative/academic field, which is subject to similar - and similarly frustrating - pressures. As for you're cod-psychological analyses of what I wrote, let me do some amateur psychonalysis on you: you're an Activision shareholder, aren't you?

    ;)
    Edited by Golgo at 18/05/11 @ 15:22

  • schnide #19 1 year ago

    No I'm not. But I'm still a shareholder who cares about great games, thus disproving your second point again and in turn everything else "which - strangely - you chose not to address." You keep sticking it to The Man though!

  • cyber_nicco #20 1 year ago

    What seems to be getting lost in all this is that shareholders don't make profits unless the games sell well. The games don't sell well unless people enjoy them (usually). So, if one's definition of a "great" game is at all objective, it has to at least consider its appeal to the wider audience. We can argue all fucking day over which game is great or not great if we are relying on our own tastes.

    Even if you use something like Metacritic as a measure of greatness, you will find games like COD tend to score very well.

  • cyber_nicco #21 1 year ago

    Oh, and I agree with Schnide.

  • Snake_2011 #22 1 year ago

    could mean GTA is coming.