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Electronic Arts Acquires BioWare, Pandemic

Quote:

Electronic Arts has announced an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire BioWare and Pandemic parent company VG Holding Corp for $620 million plus an additional $190 million in other charges, bringing the 800 employees of the companies under the EA Games wing.

Pandemic Studios and BioWare Corp. employ roughly 800 people across four studios located in Edmonton, Canada; Los Angeles; Austin; and Brisbane, Australia. The companies have ten franchises under development, including six wholly owned games.

BioWare Corp. is currently developing the highly anticipated Mass Effect, which will be published by Microsoft in November, and is in the early development stages of a massively multiplayer online game. Pandemic Studios is currently working on the upcoming Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Saboteur, in addition to several unannounced projects.

Pandemic Studios is led by Andrew Goldman, Josh Resnick and Greg Borrud. BioWare Corp. is jointly led by Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka. These teams will join the EA Games Label run by Frank Gibeau, President of EA Games.

EA will pay up to $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding Corp., which will be subject to time-based or performance-based vesting criteria. EA will also assume outstanding VG Holding Corp. stock options. In addition, EA has agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition.

Elevation Partners was founded by now Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello in 2004 after leaving his post as EA president. The company first acquired majority stakes in the developers in November of 2005, when it paid a total of $300 million.

Speaking to Reuters, EA CFO Warren Jenson was quoted as saying, "We're very excited about the revenue potential. We see that in both '09 and '10 to be in excess of $300 million."

EA Games head Frank Gibeau added, "The reason we did this deal is because it's an incredible strategic fit with EA and there is an unbelievable collection of talent from BioWare and Pandemic."

Said Riccitiello, "These are two of the most respected studios in the industry and I'm glad to be working with them again. They'll make a strong contribution to our strategic growth initiatives on quality, online gaming and developing new intellectual properties. We also expect this will drive long-term value for our shareholders."

Imagine the BioWare team working on Sims 3...

I loathe EA, but I love Bioware. This is indeed a sad day. Here's to hoping EA only provides money to Bioware and Pandemic Studios and doesn't tank them.

Or hopefully they can buy themselves or be spun-off like Bungie recently was.

Shitty news and agreed Prophecy.

I still have to give some credit to EA for skate. It's a good game. I really, really hope they don't run BioWare into the ground.

By the end of the generation we will have Activision and Electornic Arts. Each with sub-divisions of the companies they've acquired.

I'm personally ready for Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, 3: 2nd edition, 4, 5, 5:reloaded, 6, 6: first strike, 6: 2nd war, 6: war is hell, and 7

And creativity and innovation die another death in the name of corpratization and generic mass production. EA will rape and bastardize every good idea that ever came from these two studios, and leave us with the messy leftovers packaged in a bright, shiny box. And for some unintelligable reason, we all will shell out our hard earned cash and thank EA for the opportunity to do so.

how to sell out in 2008

start game company, make a good game, watch EA and Activision buy you out.

EA got a new CEO earlier this year and he seem to agree about the lack of originality of current games. I don't know what he's doing to change that, but hopefully he's trying. I can imagine two Scenarios. One, We See Mass Effect 14 before 2010. The other we see Bioware's next game has a larger budget and fewer bugs without losing MUCH of it's fun factor.. I'm hoping for the latter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shauk

how to sell out in 2008

start game company, make a good game, watch EA and Activision buy you out.

Who are you referring to selling out?
If it's Bioware or Pandemic they had no say so in this acquisition.

Anyway, back to the OP, after looking at what EA has done to Westwood Studios, Bullfrog, DICE, Origin Systems and their own line of sports games - I am honestly concerned about the future of these two studios.

I can only think of two studios off hand that EA has bought and not seriously hurt, Mythic and Criterion Games. However, I think Mythic has yet to release a game under EA, with Warhammer Online being their first(Anyone know for sure?).

One other thing I'm curious about is how employees will be treated, thanks to the wonders of the interweb, EA has been documented as one of the worst companies in video games to work for while Bioware is considered one of the best. Polar opposites in how they see working on video games.

Ah, well in closing to my rant let's hope France keeps EA's dirty paws off of Ubisoft or we might be seeing EA Bioware, EA Pandemic and EA Ubisoft.

Edit: Interesting article on the purchase.
EA Buys BioWare: Insider Views

Actually.. After EA Purchased Criterion Games, They released Burnout 3, Burnout Revenge, Burnout Dominator, and they're working on Burnout Paradise.. :)

Mythic has yet to release a game with EA.

This is pretty depressing indeed. I suppose if hell did break lose, the Bioware employees could always run away and start they're own new company?

Am I being too naive and hopeful?

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Originally Posted by DarkPho

This is pretty depressing indeed. I suppose if hell did break lose, the Bioware employees could always run away and start they're own new company?

Am I being too naive and hopeful?

They could, but sadly look at the IPs they'd leave in the hands of EA.