EA buys Bioware and Pandemic....

sad

Yeah, was thinking of posting that. Pretty weird huh?

Cant say that it surprises me though, Elevation was bound to sell em. $860 million is pretty fucking insane, had no idea they were worth that much.

here is how you get rich in the game industry:

- establish a studio

- with at least ONE successful new IP

- than sell your company and the ip to a big publisher

- and never look what they are doing with your studio or ip becasue its gonna break your heart.

Why oh why doesn't Ubisoft ever buy my favorite studios?

why oh why don't people stay independent?

Guess that's what they get for selling to an outside source, though. They swung that around for double the purchase price!

Money, money, money. Bleh.

EA has a rep of being nazi's and ruining games but i think they have become so rich that they let the designers do what they want because they can afford a flop. Not to mention crysis did fund and did market crysis really well !

EA is great, you guys don't know what you're talking about.

Thrik the EA bot.

I think EA are getting better, they are still too lax on some areas but overall - they're moving away form the ''britney spears' of the game world'' titles.

Very sad...

Does this mean that Mass Effect is going to suck, too?

Exactly, I was about to give the same example, DICE!

I'd rather see the companies staying independent, but if Ea truely lets them do their own thing, it's ok i guess.

And to be completely honest, if i owned a studio and someone offered me such an obscene amount of moneny for it... i'm not sure which way i would go since eventually people are working, working for money, more money = better no?

It takes alot of self control and pride o turn down an offer that gives you so much money you'll never have to do anything again.

If people weren't in it for the money ,they'd make mods like the communities spawn. not go work at some bigshot contracter right? So i can't say i blame them for 'selling out' really, and if EA does what they did with DICE it should be alright ,just a little more money for the company to spend on employees and game improvements i guess.

Quote from jaboo224

Not to mention crysis did fund and did market crysis really well !

EA doesn't own Crytek, though; Frie, correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall Crysis being published through the EA Partners program (the same distribution method Valve uses for the retail copies of its games). This is massively different than being owned by the publisher. They still make the game they want.

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If people weren't in it for the money ,they'd make mods like the communities spawn. not go work at some bigshot contracter right? So i can't say i blame them for 'selling out' really, and if EA does what they did with DICE it should be alright ,just a little more money for the company to spend on employees and game improvements i guess.

I don't think that's entirely true. Yes, there are some people at all levels only in it for the money, and businesses have to do well financially to survive, but a lot of people just want to be a part of something awesome and share their work with the world - something you can do far more effectively making a full retail game, even from a small company.

Also keep in mind Bioware and Pandemic didn't exactly sell themselves out to EA - this was a sale by the people they sold to before. Yay \o/ while I imagine they (being the management of both studios) had to know if they sold to some random company they'd eventually get flipped around to a publisher for a profit, I also imagine part of their goal was to secure large streams of income without the demands of a publisher behind them.

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but they've balanced this with purchasing independant developers and letting them do their own thing

Just like all those other big name studios they swiped for their franchises, then dissolved? :\

I will say, though, thank god it wasn't Activision

I really hope this deal works out for Pandemic/BioWare and not just on the financial side (with that price tag how could it not unless there are more terms we don't know about...). I hope they continue to be successful for many reasons but the one main reason is that Mercenaries was my favorite Xbox/PS2 game of all time.

Anyway, this is one of those "wait and see" deals but in the long run but I soooooo hope Pandemic gets to keep its LA offices because they are so cool and have the greatest view. :wink:

Quote from KungFuSquirrel

EA doesn't own Crytek, though; Frie, correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall Crysis being published through the EA Partners program (the same distribution method Valve uses for the retail copies of its games). This is massively different than being owned by the publisher. They still make the game they want.

Correcto, EA Partners is a seperate entity from the rest of EA that handles projects developed in independent studios, such as Crysis by Crytek.

I don't think Crysis is 100% funded by EA(P) though..

On the subject:

I found following excerpt from the gi.biz article interesting:

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CEO John Riccitiello told investors that he had a residual interest in Elevation Partners, which is why the acquisition was handled by an independent audit committee.Although Riccitiello did not discuss his personal stake in the acquisition any further, EA has filed form 8-K with the SEC indicating that he could earn as much as USD 4.9 million from the deal.

Sounds like a good deal for Riccitiello