EA To Acquire BioWare and Pandemic

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Shir'le E. Illios
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EA To Acquire BioWare and Pandemic

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

Yes, that’s right, the premier independent studio is no longer independent and now falls under the big, corporate EA umbrella.

According to the [url=http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/pre ... f:1b8vluov]official press release[/url:1b8vluov]:

[quote:1b8vluov][center:1b8vluov][b:1b8vluov]EA TO ACQUIRE BIOWARE CORP. AND PANDEMIC STUDIOS

Leaders in RPG, Action and Adventure Genres
Ten Franchises in Development – Six Wholly Owned[/b:1b8vluov][/center:1b8vluov]

[b:1b8vluov]REDWOOD CITY, Calif., October 11, 2007[/b:1b8vluov] – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) 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 [i:1b8vluov]Mercenaries 2: World in Flames[/i:1b8vluov]â„¢ and [i:1b8vluov]Saboteur[/i:1b8vluov]â„¢, 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 EAâ„¢ 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.[/quote:1b8vluov]
In response to the news GameSpot has a [url=http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6180866.htm ... 6:1b8vluov]Q&A: BioWare on the EA buyout[/url:1b8vluov] article up in which Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeshcuk express their (seemingly positive) feelings over the whole thing. But if you read the fan comments in their forums ([url=http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic ... 1:1b8vluov]part 1[/url:1b8vluov], [url=http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic ... 1:1b8vluov]part 2[/url:1b8vluov]) most fans aren’t happy about it at all, seeming fearful and very cautious at best.

And I must admit that I’m not sure how to feel about this. Even though Greg maintains that they’re still independent (seriously, Greg, look up the meaning of the word “indepenent”) the truth seem to me that they’re now beholden to EA (in fact, they [i:1b8vluov]are[/i:1b8vluov] now EA). Though of course this doesn’t have to mean the end of things (I still have high hopes for EA Mythic for example), but it seems to me that this could so easily go completely wrong.

My best hope is that this’ll mean that perhaps Mass Effect will come to the PC. My worst fear is that it’ll turn their games into a generic mush that are made to appeal to the greatest numbers instead of being the best game (and so often those two goals seem mutually exclusive). It also makes me wonder about the MMO that they’re working on in Austin (which seems to be a big reason for the buyout as I understand it).

Well, there you have it. We’ll see what the future holds. But for me I’m cautiously pessimistic.


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Post by Unen_Stealthfoot »

:squint: [color=indigo:2k5o679w]mmmm.............. I like Bioware as is........[/color:2k5o679w]
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Post by CrankyOzzie »

So EA own Bioware now huh? Fucking great, let's sit back and watch them strangle another - formerly good - company to death by demanding they pander to the "If it [i:3d3s9c0g]looks[/i:3d3s9c0g] good, it must be good" crowd.

EA! *Spits*
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Post by Tyrmer »

Tut tut Cranky, language.

We don't like the E word on this forum...
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Post by CrankyOzzie »

[quote="Tyrmer":2y5pu4ya]Tut tut Cranky, language.

We don't like the E word on this forum...[/quote:2y5pu4ya]

But Mr Tyrmer, Shir'le said it first!
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Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

[quote="CrankyOzzie":fgp6ueev][quote="Tyrmer":fgp6ueev]Tut tut Cranky, language.

We don't like the E word on this forum...[/quote:fgp6ueev]

But Mr Tyrmer, Shir'le said it first![/quote:fgp6ueev]
I've got special compensation. ;)


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