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EA Acquires Pandemic & BioWare

By Ian White on Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 5:45 PM EST  

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In a deal worth more than $775 Million, EA has announced that they will acquire VG Holding Corp., which owns both Pandemic Studios and BioWare Corp.

“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. We also expect this will drive long-term value for our shareholders,” said EA CEO John Riccitiello.

Together, the studios employ about 800 people across their four locations in Edmonton, Canada; Los Angeles; Austin; and Brisbane, Australia.

BioWare is currently developing Mass Effect which is slated for release next month, and also has began development on an untitled massively multiplayer game. Pandemic is responsible for the successful Mercenaries series and is currently developing the upcoming Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Saboteur.

So what does this mean? Well, it’ll be interesting to see how EA handles it’s two new acquisitions. It could be a dismal existence for each company with EA slowly drinking the blood from their necks, or EA could stand back and let the studios continue to do their thing with an added sense of security that comes with the backing of the world’s biggest publisher. All we really know is, that’s one hell of a check EA wrote today.

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