EA aquires Bioware and Pandemic
Mass Effect XIV scheduled for December then?
Gaming megapublisher and dev sweat shop operator Electronic Arts plans to buy VG Holding Corp, owner of BioWare and Pandemic Studios, for $860m.
The sum will give EA ownership of both BioWare's and Pandemic's IPs, including Jade Empire, Mass Effect Dragon Age and Baldur's Gate.
EA will pay $620m in cash to stockholders, as well as $155m in equity to "certain employees of VG Holding," assume $50m in outstanding stock, and loan the company up to $35m.
"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 Riccitello, EA CEO. "We also expect this will drive long-term value for our shareholders."
Gaming fan concerns over EA's, um, quantitative approach to the market may not be unfounded. The BBC reports that EA plans to release four or five games a year from the new studios.
The acquisition is subject to the regular gang of customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. It's expected to close in January 2008. ®
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COMMENTS
- Alastair
Actually, I own and have played all but 2 of the games listed, 1 of which was not made by Bioware; NWN2, (as has been correctly pointed out by Paul). The other was Jade Empire, which I do intend to buy.
I've read through your post a couple of times, and you appear to firstly be bashing my defence of Bioware and Pandemic, and then rather oddly, bashing me for liking EA?!? Let me see, how can I make this clear?
I DO NOT LIKE EA - I DON'T WANT THEM TO SWALLOW UP ALL THE SMALLER STUDIOS.
Sorry to shout, but obviously I need to reinforce the point I already made quite clearly in my original post.
I stand by my original comments, and feel playing games that may be shipped with a few bugs, but have quality gameplay, plot and replayability are infinitely preferable to the processed garbage that EA churns out with appalling regularity.
And with regard to your point about Metacritic, I'd rather believe an overall score taken from a large number of publications and websites that I read regularly and trust through experience, than pay attention to someone who can't even read the post he is supposed to be trashing/trolling.
There - understand now?
KOTOR II/NWN II are not really Bioware games
Bioware did not make KOTOR II or Neverwinter Nights 2.
They handed over the engines to Obsidian Studios.
@Steve
Dude have you actially played those games, who in the right mind believes metascores? If you all believed them every game would be 9/10 or 81% so the law of averages mean there is never any game ever released that wasn't very good and yet there are tons.
Also they don't review how EVERYBODY finds a games, KOTOR was good ish, KOTOR2 was a clone that didn't make sense (anyone understand why the guy was on a half dead ship floating around anyway?), had a massive bug that meant you couldn't get the voice module form the first HK robot, this making it unfinishable for a large % of players. Also the bug of the woman (mira) and wookie on the jabba's moon and the legendary bandit encounter that never happened, thus stopping the game. Yet your score is 85.
NWN. you play and do everything and the last item you get before fighting the lizard people and their queen in their lair is an amulet you need to be a certain level to wear. I did everything and couldn't wear it. Killed everyone, did every quest and still couldn't wear the only thing I had to survive that encounter. 91% not for me, for me it was a rip off.
EA buy nice little companies and turn them to shit. (Westwood - C&C, DICE - battlefield 1942) being the two I can name.
BF1942 was great, no bugs and ran like a dream. Ea released BF2 and BF 2142. Widely regarded as buggy and hack ridden (the fly yourself around pods, spawn with no beacon, walk through walls). 2142 has the same bugs that the BETA did. (key mapping and tank rear armour bug) Ea also famously gave us the now in use spyware that tries to sell us Lloyds bank accounts on billboards in game.
EA rush clone jobs based on good stuff and don't have a QA department.
Why don't you play these games and get online to experience the true horror that EA release instead of quoting some fanboy magazine articles that is so far out you need a telescope. Or do you believe the Supreme commander score as well, 9/10 for the buggiest (Can't install CD check errors) resource hungry (Minimum 2GB ram, Dual core) turkey since Vista.
Ea buying more games companies....
Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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