EA To Acquire Pandemic & Bioware! >

	2007/10/12 8:37:20: Posted by DM
	Today EA has seriously increased their game developer value, folks. The publisher giant has announced today that they have reached an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire VG Holding Corp., the owners of Bioware and Pandemic Studios. Oh boy, let's hope both of those great developers do not get EA-cized! Click read more for the full info. PRESS RELEASE REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Electronic Arts Inc. today announced an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire VG Holding Corp. -- the owner of both BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios. This acquisition gives EA a strong competitive position in key genres in interactive entertainment: action, adventure and role-playing games. The two studios have been recognized for creating some of the highest-quality games in the industry. BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios 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 redefining open-world games with its upcoming Mercenaries 2: World in Flames(TM) and Saboteur(TM), in addition to several unannounced projects. Pandemic Studios and BioWare Corp. employ roughly 800 people across four studios located in Edmonton, Canada; Los Angeles; Austin; and Brisbane, Australia. "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," said John Riccitiello, EA's Chief Executive Officer. "We also expect this will drive long-term value for our shareholders." 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(TM) Games Label run by Frank Gibeau, President of EA Games. "Pandemic Studios remains focused on attracting the best talent and creating blockbuster action games," said Josh Resnick, President and Co-founder of Pandemic Studios. "As a worldwide publishing leader, EA represents the ideal partner to bring our titles to market as global entertainment events." "We are truly excited by John Riccitiello's new vision for EA," said Ray Muzyka, Co-founder and CEO of BioWare Corp. "This vision is consistent with BioWare's focus on crafting the highest quality story-driven games in the world. It will enable us to further the careers of the passionate, creative and hard working teams at BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Austin." 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. Transaction and Financial Information * The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. * The transaction is expected to close in January 2008. * On a GAAP basis, the acquisition is expected to be dilutive to EA's fiscal 2008 results by approximately $0.30 to $0.40 due to non-recurring acquisition-related charges, stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets. This amount is a preliminary estimate based on currently-available information and is subject to change. * On a non-GAAP basis, the acquisition is expected to be dilutive to EA's fiscal 2008 fourth quarter results by approximately $0.05. This amount is a preliminary estimate based on currently-available information and is subject to change.
	Labeled With  ea bioware pandemic Comments [8]  | Rate this article: -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  | Be the first to rate this article

as i said in the forums, its a bad day for gaming, EA acquires another promising developer, wait for a bogus sequel every year, they will rush everything for the sake of making money, sad day

DAMN! another shot in EA's bid for world domination, Damn them and all their f@#king money.........look for Bioshock 2 next summer then 3 in fall.

damn

actually, irrational did bioshock, and they are owned by 2k i think, anyways, wait for kotor next year, a sequel the year after that, and ME will be done in the shortest time, boy i hate what they have done to previous studios they bought.

anyone remember digital illusions

Response to arthur56k:

You are correct about Bioshock, and who owns that Intellectual Property.

Guys, this situation isn't as bad as it sounds...let me explain why.

First, the deals that Bioware and Pandemic had previously signed contracts for still remain in activity.

For example, even though EA is the world's largest Publisher of Third-Party games, Microsoft will still be the Publisher of Mass Effect.



This isn't a surpirse, though, because according to this info, the deal doesn't fully start until January 1, 2008, and Mass Effect is going to be released on November 20, 2007.

But, from a hypothetical point of view, even if Mass Effect was delayed a really long time, it wouldn't matter, Microsoft Game Studios would still be the Publisher, because of the previous contracts that have been signed.

It will almost certainly be like that with all three of the games in the Mass Effect trilogy, unless Microsoft and EA can work out some sort of deal where EA takes over the exclusive Publishing of the game for the Xbox 360. I don't think that will happen, though, because EA makes too many references to "long-term" Publishing benefits that will come to EA (i.e. after current Development/Publishing contracts have come to an end with Microsoft Game Studios in several years).





Still, I have to say, I'm not wild about spending $600 million dollars on a game company. EA must really think that those two companies have valuable IP's--games that they will make a lot of sequels to over the years. Maybe not "annual" sequels, like with the sports games, but perhaps every other year.

On the other hand, we might get a new "Mercs" game EVERY YEAR, but with these original developers only creating the game every other year, kind of like how Infinity Ward created the awesome Call of Duty 2, but not the disappointing Call of Duty 3, but they are now working on the cool Call of Duty 4. That means some other developer will end up giving us Call of Duty 5 next year.

Hopefully that particular scenario won't happen with games like Mercs.

scary, thats all.

its bad news, EA will rush the devs, thats the bottom line

arthur56k,

Sadly you are probably correct...EA is spending nearly $1 billion dollars for these two companies, which means that they are spending nearly $1 million dollars for each employee. Although EA will own the cool IP Property that they have created up to this point, the employees themselves are free to leave any time they want...and that is what they may do if they are rushed by the Publisher.

Thankfully, the first Mass Effect is a game that the developers at Bioware had all the time they wanted to create it; it was actually delayed once, and Microsoft would have allowed them the chance to delay it into 2008 if they would have wanted. Thankfully, that second delay was not necessary, and we will be playing Mass Effect about one month from now!

Mass Effect is going to be HUGE!!!

I saw how long the list of pre-orders for Mass Effect was at my local store, and it was loooooooong!!!

ok krogan i dont get ya at all. when CoD3 came out ya didnt shut up about it sayin its the fps of the year much better than RFOM. but now its crap for ya. make your freakin mind up