EA Agrees $1.2 Billion Deal To Acquire Codemasters

Don't do racing games.. Lucky me

@A01
This

Hahahaha rock meet hard place.

Well, I'll go for the lesser evil, then: Take Two. EA getting their hands on it would basically mean the death of Codemasters racing games as we know them, whereas Take Two is probably a bit more lenient towards development teams.

EA means free on gamepass

What does Codemasters do other than racing games anyways?

And I am disagreement with people here. Take Two is just as bad as EA when it comes to micro transactions & maybe even worse these days.

And at least, as Xbox fans, we get EA Play on Game Pass. 👍🏻 lol.

If I worked for a dev shop that got bought by EA, I would likely start hunting for a new job instantly.

@KelticDevil but EA is more likely to set unrealistic goals, dismantle the studios, and write off the loss for tax purposes.

EA is worse, because it's like death counter.

@Tharsman that I sadly true but @KelticDevil it’s kind of awful either way :c

Thanks capitalism! 🙄

@Tharsman according to the Glassdoor and other employee satisfaction sites, EA is a great workplace where crunching is almost nonexistent, pay is good and benefits are awesome. That’s why the high profile personnel go to EA (ex-Uncharted creators, and etc.).

So I highly doubt that anyone in Codemasters will start looking for a new job immediately.

@KelticDevil Basically, both are bad, but as @Tharsman so correctly stated, EA does have a track record of buying up and then dismantling and/or assimilating studios, crippling their creative freedom.

Well that's another company ruined

Just when I bought Dirt Rally 2.0 with all DLC... Oh well, still good news for Game Pass subscribers
Edit: stop it with this doom and gloom about EA. It's getting old now.

God, I hate Wilson. Arrogant sob with his smug, nearly always sour looking face.

I always wonder what kind of a world we live in, if deals that were already agreed upon, can suddenly be gate-crashed by newer offers. Seems like a serious backstab move to me.

Well, that's all I need or want to say about this crap, other than the fact that I will never again buy or play any of the racing games involved in this deal.

I'll leave you people with this (in my opinion) brilliant comment that I found on another website:

"Well, that's just wonderful. I can't wait to start paying 5 euros per pit stop in the upcoming F1 games, that'll have a career mode that will practically remain the same for the next 10 years... "

@gollumb82 I agree. People tend to overreact when it comes to EA. Just last year they released Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, which was an absolutely phenomenal game and was not ruined in any way by EA. The future of the Mass Effect series is looking promising as well, with a remastered collection of the original ME trilogy that is modernised for current gen coming out next year and a direct sequel to the original trilogy on its way as well!

Just because EA behaves in a certain way with some of their franchises doesn't mean that they do so with all of them.

@LtSarge
Thanks for the support Lt! Obviously, EA made bad decisions in the past and ruined some franchises (Dead Space 3)/companies (Visceral) in the process, but their latest actions have been somewhat more promising. Take all the things you mentioned (new ME and the trilogy remaster, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order) as examples. We could use the EA of old and I'd rather keep my fingers crossed than bash them. Nobody is perfect, including CDPR...

$1.2 billion seems a little crazy for Codemasters. The $7.5 billion acquisition of Zenimax seems like a pretty solid deal looking at this, and Sony’s $229 million acquisition of Insomniac was an absolute steal. Surely, the Insomniac big wigs are hitting themselves for not allowing a bidding war. They could’ve probably made quadruple what they got.

@gollumb82 Yeah exactly, everyone has been gushing over how consumer-friendly CDPR is and then they lie to consumers about base PS4/Xbox One versions of Cyberpunk running well. At the end of the day, what takes precedent is the company's business and not the consumers. This applies to all companies, so it's not like EA is the only one behaving this way. It's all circumstantial.

So long Dirt Franchise! You’ve been one of my favorites for years!!

@tobsesta99 to be fair. It’s the free market that even brought us video game innovation in the first place. It’s pretty much a guarantee that video games would’ve never seen existence under any economic system with government control over goods and services. They’re a luxury, and those systems tend to prioritize consumer needs (above wants) in a poorly managed way.

@Hypnotoad107

Agreed. The $7.5 billion Microsoft paid seems like a bargain compared to this.

And EA already has racing franchises, which makes this a curious purchase to me. 🤷🏼‍♂️

@KelticDevil I think they are more interested in the studio rather than the IP in this case.

@Kefka2589 A new Overlord game would make me so happy.

@KelticDevil Probably an attempt to monopolize the genre. There's very few other developers left that make racing sims, other than a couple of smaller and insignificant ones.

@Hypnotoad107 @Kefka2589

I agree. I loved the Overlord games. It’s a shame that series never went on to be as big as it could have been.

@ThanosReXXX

True. Microsoft seems to be western-RPG king right now. Maybe EA wants the same for racing games not named Forza or Gran Turismo.

I really hope they don't go the same way of the excellent Criterion Games

Only plus here is that EA Play is on Gamepass so perhaps if EA own Codemasters some of the games will arrive on the service...

@KelticDevil Agreed, 2K is definitely worse at the present moment of time. They used to be ok, but they've taken all the old EA and Activision tricks and doubled down on them in really horrifying ways. They used to be decent, but that was some time ago.

@ThanosReXXX IDK, I get the impression that EA is in a reinvention process right now. The worst of what they did was under Probst and Riccitiello in the early 2000's where the bought everyone and summarily shut them down one by one. They did a lot of damage and built a reportedly horrible place to work. But it seems like under newer leadership (yes, even Wilson) they're trying to go back to roots and rebuild somewhat. They're resurrecting abandoned IPs and genres and backing off some of their most egregious wrongs.

Meanwhile 2k I ramping up to clone the worst of what they ever did before, and then some. Heck 2k is spearheading the $70 price point along with Sony and Acti, while EA is starting to release less-than-$60 GaaS games. EA is starting to feel like an actual games company more than they have since 2000, while 2K feels more like Kotick-era Activision.

@NEStalgia Well, they may be on the mend right now, for whatever that's worth, but they're still led by that idiot Wilson, who is a despicable figure both on and off camera, and the ghost of Christmas past is still haunting them.

Their bad wrap is simply too big to just wipe the slate clean because they've actually done a handful of things right in recent times.

They're still disadvantaging the Switch, they're still battling to keep their annoying micro-transaction crap in games (the Dutch government has actually sued them for it, and successfully, I might add, although EA has not yet finished their court run, but over here, it's just a matter of time, so it's just a worm wriggling on a hook) so far as I'm concerned, they've still got a LONG way to go to make themselves look like the choir boys that some apparently make them out to be...

And needless to say, I see this latest move as yet another example of their wicked ways. They had no business being in this deal, it was basically already done and dusted, so to strong-arm your way in and financially overpower an already practically signed deal is just a highly despicable move, and if you consider that it's me who says that, a sales & marketing professional, who isn't shying away from certain business tactics himself, then that should already tell you something...

@NEStalgia Mind you, not saying 2K are choir boys either, but comparing the two, I still see them as the lesser of two evils. Sure they also do the micro-transaction dance, but their track record of taking over and then dismantling other studios is child's play compared to EA's...

@ThanosReXXX Wilson may be an idiot, but he's up against steep competition in this industry between Kotick, Ryan, Zelnick......

I didn't say EA is a good company. Just less bad than 2K. It's like choosing between eating moldy cheese and rancid fish. Neither are appealing but given the choice, you have better chances on the cheese.

But I do agree this deal is pretty ugly. My take on it is basically, they didn't care about Codemasters competing with them, but they couldn't tolerate, at any cost, 2K getting a competitive foot against them in racing, therefore Codemasters basically needs to be absorbed or dissolved to keep their games off the market or under their umbrella. Yeah, that's scummy. OTOH there's the chance we actually get some good racing games from the IPs from EA, and I just don't see that as possible under 2K

The dismantling of studios at EA seems to be a Probst era nightmare, long since over. Though Criterion was kind of a mess. They sort of patched it back together though. I'll never forgive them for Westwood and Bullfrog though. Lionhead they passed the trash to MS where Matrick finally offed it.

@NEStalgia It's funny, because I actually see it the other way around, other than agreeing that EA might have done this to take out any possible competition, or as I already mentioned in a previous comment, to monopolize the multi-platform branch of sim racers.

I don't see developers having more artistic freedom under EA than under 2K, and I actually believe that over there, they would have been able to remain their own entity within the company's eco-system, whereas EA are simply the video game publishing equivalent of the Borg, who'll assimilate your skills, and will throw away the empty husks or excess baggage.

But I guess we'll ultimately see how this will pan out. I'm hoping for the best for the developers, but right now, I wouldn't be too eager to place any bets on a too positive outcome...

Looks like EA have total control over the racing genre now, outside of Forza and GT.
I just hope they let Codemasters carry on what they were doing, but with more budget.

@ThanosReXXX

I totally agree with you about Andrew Wilson. He comes off like some evil cyborg whenever I see him speak. I have heard some refer to sim as Android Wilson & I think that fits. lol.

@KelticDevil Haha, yeah. I once theorized that he may be sleeping on pillows drenched in vinegar, hence the continuously sour face...