EA Buys BioWare and Pandemic Studios

[Killer360]

Yesterday evening, Electronic Arts announced that anti-trust regulators have approved the publisher’s US$775 million (£390 million) acquisition of BioWare and Pandemic Studios.

Electronic Arts originally announced last month that it was to purchase VG Holding Corp, the parent company for the two games development studios.

The world’s leading games publisher will pay VG Holding Corp’s shareholders a massive US$620 million (£315 million) in cash, along with another US$155 million (£80 million) in equity to key VG Holding Corp employees under the terms of the deal.

The Federal Trade Commission included the deal as part of a list of ‘early termination’ anti-trust reviews, whereby the review was completed before the end of the 30-day period required under anti-trust law.

Associated Press reports that the deal is expected to be officially completed at some point in January.

Link: bit-tech.net | BioWare, Pandemic acquisition approved

There goes BioWare's rep...

[DesR85]

In case you're wondering, this news was already covered at the GB news section. Sad, but what can you expect when someone buys over a company?

[dragon wench]

I know it would never happen, but I'd love to see some effective international laws come into effect that stop this sort of concentration of media ownership....
It's not healthy to have gaming companies swallowing one another up like this.. (Even Adam Smith stated that competition is a good thing)

[DesR85]

Originally Posted by dragon wench

I know it would never happen, but I'd love to see some effective international laws come into effect that stop this sort of concentration of media ownership....
It's not healthy to have gaming companies swallowing one another up like this.. (Even Adam Smith stated that competition is a good thing)

That's how companies do business (well, most of them, that is). This trend of gobbling up small or big companies is prevalent everywhere. Not surprising at all. The good thing is, at least if the employees in that particular company is not happy with their new owners, they can leave and set up a new company. The cycle goes on...

[Wargath]

EA bought Mythic and look what happened, they cancelled the Warhammer Online Beta after a huge wave of unpleasent feedback on the beta forums. One can only hope that KotOR Online or whatever it's called does not suffer the same fate because one thing's for sure: whatever EA touches turns into ****.

[fable]

We already have a news thread that details all this, plus more. It's under--wait for it!--GameBanshee News. Please use that for your comments, instead of this forum, which is meant specifically for KotoR 3. Thanks.

Thread closed.