[Industry]: Electronic Arts acquires Bioware, Pandemic

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2007-10-11 04:49pm

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(TM) and Saboteur(TM), 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(TM) 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

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-10-11 04:54pm

Somehow, somewhere, a star system or two died...

As for Pandemic, I think there's a sense of irony here...

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2007-10-11 05:03pm

Part of me just died inside.

As if EA Mythic wasn't bad enough... now it's EA BioWare?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-10-11 05:05pm

What does EA not own now?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-11 05:08pm

Couldn't they have bought out Bioware AFTER they released Mass Effect?

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-10-11 05:38pm

Stark wrote:Couldn't they have bought out Bioware AFTER they released Mass Effect?

They can't fuck up that game, it's too far along.

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2007-10-11 05:51pm

Darth Wong wrote:What does EA not own now?

All the developers I buy: EAD, Intsys, Brownie Brown, Treasure, Cave, Armor Project etc

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-11 05:53pm

Wow, you're on a pretentious roll today.

DP, I'm sure EA's power of suck can affect Mass Effect somehow. At least it's on console, so we're not going to be waiting for patches.

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2007-10-11 05:59pm

Stark wrote:Wow, you're on a pretentious roll today.

Rhetorical questions can be answered too.

If one really wishes to avoid the shadow of Redwood, Japan's a good place to do it.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2007-10-11 06:02pm

WE ARE ELECTRONIC ARTS.
EXISTENCE AS YOU KNOW IT IS OVER.
WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN.
YOUR COOPERATE CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US.
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. BEND OVER.

Jesus Christ is EA out to COMPLETELY destroy the gaming industry?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2007-10-11 06:02pm

Stark wrote:Wow, you're on a pretentious roll today.

DP, I'm sure EA's power of suck can affect Mass Effect somehow. At least it's on console, so we're not going to be waiting for patches.

Doesn't Mass Effect come out sometime in November? They should be pretty much on top of gold status.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-11 06:04pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Doesn't Mass Effect come out sometime in November? They should be pretty much on top of gold status.

[EA paranoia]But it's EA! They hate their customers and provide poor after-sales service! Surely their suck practices will impact Mass Effect![/EA paranoia]

LMSx · Post by **LMSx** » 2007-10-11 06:16pm

EA is really good at preying on the stupid with franchise titles and mostly marginal updates to their sports cash cows, and have treated their employees like shit in the past, but it doesn't sound like they're nuking either studio's individuality. From here it sounds like they're changing the names on Bioware's checks.

Good call by Bono- Elevation Partners bought Bioware/Pandemic for $300 million and sells it for $860 million, that's a nice half-billion in the bank. Between U2 and deals like this, he's got to have a couple hundred million.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2007-10-11 06:48pm

Toys For Bob is still out there...hope yet lives...

Goddammit.

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2007-10-11 06:57pm

Oh man, BioWare got bought up? Bummer. It was nice to have a studio in town, and I don't suppose EA will be leaving them here?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2007-10-11 07:03pm

Phantasee wrote:Oh man, BioWare got bought up? Bummer. It was nice to have a studio in town, and I don't suppose EA will be leaving them here?

Why shouldn't they? They'd rename it EA whatever after a while like Westwood and thats it.
Shockingly to many posters here apperantly, EA is not some big evil empire that will ruin gaming, just EA sports.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2007-10-11 07:13pm

Phantasee wrote:Oh man, BioWare got bought up? Bummer. It was nice to have a studio in town, and I don't suppose EA will be leaving them here?

Straight to the czech republic with them.

Or Bangladesh.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2007-10-11 07:51pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:They can't fuck up that game, it's too far along.

They can easily screw up Dragon Age, though, if that game is even still in development.

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2007-10-11 09:07pm

Who do you work for, Ace?

Yeah, I guess they might keep them around. I guess I'm just used to seeing our golden apples in various industries being plucked and replanted somewhere else too often.

I should probably see if they have tours of their offices sometime. It'd be cool to see some Mass Effect action before it gets released.

And then I could make a webcomic about how I infiltrated their offices...

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-10-11 09:54pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
DPDarkPrimus wrote:They can't fuck up that game, it's too far along.
They can easily screw up Dragon Age, though, if that game is even still in development.

The game they've only released one painfully generic screenshot of?

Yeah, that's a big loss.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2007-10-11 10:08pm

Darth Wong wrote:What does EA not own now?

yeah, my soul, I'm a bit annoyed and wanting to scream...

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2007-10-11 11:51pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:
Master of Ossus wrote:They can easily screw up Dragon Age, though, if that game is even still in development.
The game they've only released one painfully generic screenshot of?

Yeah, that's a big loss.

Yeah, because this is a "painfully generic screenshot."

Also, as the spiritual successor to BGII and IWD, it is a big loss if they muck it up.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2007-10-12 03:06am

Great. So endeth one of my favorite developping studios

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2007-10-12 08:19am

Ace Pace wrote:Shockingly to many posters here apperantly, EA is not some big evil empire that will ruin gaming, just EA sports.

And EA Hay-guys-how-about-another-FPS-I-hear-those-sell-well and their "let's buy all developers in the world, for we hear that will make it impossible for new developers to enter the industry unless they let us buy them and work for us for minimum pay; yay maximum profit for us" philosophy. They're not an evil empire, just your average garden-variety evil corporation.

Gaidin · Post by **Gaidin** » 2007-10-12 08:57am

Call me crazy, but I can live with this as long as EA doesn't try to micromanage their development process.