THE BORE
General => Video Game Bored => Topic started by: demi on October 11, 2007, 05:04:32 PM
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EA To Acquire BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios
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™ and Saboteur™, 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™ 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.
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holy shit, huge bombshell
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I don't even know who Pandemic are but that really sucks about BioWare... This'll be the second great WRPG company totally gutted and destroyed by the EA behemoth :(
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dragon age is pretty much guaranteed to be on the 360 now IMO
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And probably PS3 and a scaled-back version on Wii with tacked-on waggle. This sucks and I'm not even that into WRPGs!
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WHAT?! >:( :(
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Mass Madden 2270 confirmed
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holy shit
holy shit
They sure paid a ton of money for them too. That's a huge sum.
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holy shit
holy shit
You're next!
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fuck, this is terrible news.
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It's sort of clear what happened here-the burn rate at Bioware and Pandemic is massive, both of their big games have seen substantial delays and Mercs 2 is very much not a "slam dunk" title at sales by any means. The PE firm got jittery and EA presented them with an offer they couldn't refuse.
If they let Bioware and Pandemic just make games and handle things from a sort of hands-off approach (like they are doing with EA Mythic and Vivendi does with Blizzard), then I can see this working out.
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(http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2305/afbeelding1pw7.png)
what
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It's sort of clear what happened here-the burn rate at Bioware and Pandemic is massive, both of their big games have seen substantial delays and Mercs 2 is very much not a "slam dunk" title at sales by any means. The PE firm got jittery and EA presented them with an offer they couldn't refuse.
If they let Bioware and Pandemic just make games and handle things from a sort of hands-off approach (like they are doing with EA Mythic and Vivendi does with Blizzard), then I can see this working out.
you can say goodbye to platform exclusives as well. which is shitty because these studios will never utilize hardware to its fullest potential. let's hope for the best, i suppose. so much for the mass effect "trilogy" being an xbox 360 thing.
edit: okay, somewhat corrected by bud. but it's EA we're talking about... they can bend these guys over any way they wish to.
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EA paid WAY too much here, thinking about things.
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It's sort of clear what happened here-the burn rate at Bioware and Pandemic is massive, both of their big games have seen substantial delays and Mercs 2 is very much not a "slam dunk" title at sales by any means. The PE firm got jittery and EA presented them with an offer they couldn't refuse.
If they let Bioware and Pandemic just make games and handle things from a sort of hands-off approach (like they are doing with EA Mythic and Vivendi does with Blizzard), then I can see this working out.
you can say goodbye to platform exclusives as well. which is shitty because these studios will never utilize hardware to its fullest potential. let's hope for the best, i suppose. so much for the mass effect "trilogy" being an xbox 360 thing.
edit: okay, somewhat corrected by bud. but it's EA we're talking about... they can bend these guys over any way they wish to.
i don't think ms owns any of the rights to the sequels to me, so that's why i posted that pic (icebeezy, lol).*
*i could be wrong
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EA paid WAY too much here, thinking about things.
damn, close to 1 billion!!
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Well, there goes the best RPG company :(
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Well, there goes the best RPG company :(
Mistwalker is still alive... what has BioWare done recently?
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jade empire
GUFFAW
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Well, there goes the best RPG company :(
RIP good games.
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Holy fuckin' shit. Whoa. All hail our new EA overlords, cause they're back and they mean business apparently.
Now, back to Everyday is Another Shooter...
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The Blackhole strikes again!
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Well, there goes any hopes of KOTOR III being good...
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KOTOR 3 was going to be devved by the dudes that did KOTOR 2 anyhows, rite?
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KOTOR 3 was going to be devved by the dudes that did KOTOR 2 anyhows, rite?
Obsidian? Well, I hope Lucas Arts lets them finish the damn thing before pushing it out the door.
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Lucasarts wouldn't skip on the chance to milk KOTOR more.
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Lucasarts wouldn't skip on the chance to milk KOTOR more.
Yes, but they forced Obsidian to release the Sith Lords before it was finished.
I don't care how much I love TIE fighter... fuck you Lucas Arts!!!!!
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True. But it seems that it's been a bit quiet on the KOTOR front for a while. Maybe they've been making it for next gen systems and since Lucas doesn't want another KOTOR 2 to happen, they wanna give them more time to do it?
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Gotta love all the RPG jokes "Wow it seems EA eaned a +100diplomacy with this acquisition".
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Holy fuckin' shit. Whoa. All hail our new EA overlords, cause they're back and they mean business apparently.
Now, back to Everyday is Another Shooter...
is there a demo for that game? or is it buy-only?
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Holy fuckin' shit. Whoa. All hail our new EA overlords, cause they're back and they mean business apparently.
Now, back to Everyday is Another Shooter...
is there a demo for that game? or is it buy-only?
Buy only. I'll share it with you, though. What do you have?
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Holy fuckin' shit. Whoa. All hail our new EA overlords, cause they're back and they mean business apparently.
Now, back to Everyday is Another Shooter...
is there a demo for that game? or is it buy-only?
Buy only. I'll share it with you, though. What do you have?
really? that'd be awesome... i'll send you a PM
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EA will soon have enough development teams to secure their own CONSOLE LOL
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hell, they've got all genres covered now.
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Wow, this really sucks for MS. They lost Bizarre, Bungie (well, they don't own them anymore), people left Lionhead (to form Media Molecule, who is making LittleBigPlanet on PS3), lost Digital Illusions, and now they lost Bioware (since they'll be working with EA now). They're really in a rut first party wise now (next up is Epic).
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Wow, this really sucks for MS. They lost Bizarre, Bungie (well, they don't own them anymore), people left Lionhead (to form Media Molecule, who is making LittleBigPlanet on PS3), lost Digital Illusions, and now they lost Bioware (since they'll be working with EA now). They're really in a rut first party wise now (next up is Epic).
Somehow you turned this into a bash on 360 and a rah-rah post for PS3.
I AM SO SHOCKED>
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I don't think that this move means much, the two Albertans who direct and control all of Bioware's projects probably made sure to keep the same level of control and independence as they had before
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EA will soon have enough development teams to secure their own CONSOLE LOL
If EA made another console, I would make it my personal mission in life to trash it as bad as this forum trashes the Wii and the PS3.
FUCK EA. WHY GOD DID THEY HAVE TO BUY BIOWARE WHY WHY WHY?
:gloomy :-\
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Is there no god?
:(
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EA will soon have enough development teams to secure their own CONSOLE LOL
This has been a joke for a while...but this shit just got real.
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If EA made a console, it'd crush everyone. They have some of the biggest properties in the industry - a console exclusive Madden alone would be enough to generate a huge install base. Now, they've got top IPs and studios at their disposal, in almost every genre!
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We'd be left with the EA console and Wii 2.
A more terrifying prospect than The Dark Shake let loose in a suburban mall food court.
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Slightly OT.
I can't help but sort of think Microsoft's first-party strategy-publishing really promising games from quality companies in a very "hands off" sort of way-might have a big hole in it-it requires the development house to be somewhat independent (a dying breed these days), and it only really funds part of the operating cost of a big-budget game studio.
One or two untimely delays-like Bioware and Pademic have, and many big-name houses have regularly, could put the com,panies in a financing crunch that only has a logical out in equity divestment to a PE firm or outright sale to a publishing company. You also have to go through the pain of dealing with different PR/marketing teams and late-inning publisher QA staff every single game.
MS's model is a good one on paper and distributes both risk and reward on both sides of the agreement. I just don't know how solid it is in an age of spiraling game budgets/burn rate and large development team size.
The alternative-buying companies outright-sucks for everyone involved. Wish there was more leeway to work with inbetween.
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If EA made a console, it'd crush everyone. They have some of the biggest properties in the industry - a console exclusive Madden alone would be enough to generate a huge install base. Now, they've got top IPs and studios at their disposal, in almost every genre!
i'd buy an EA console, just for skate. :o
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An EA console would just be asking for an anti trust lawsuit.
That being said the general consensus I get from people who know people at EA is that the idea has entered EA's head.