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That’s A Lot For An Electric Tricycle…
Written by Kieron Gillen on October 12, 2007 at 3:50 pm.
But enough about really old Your Sinclair Gags which about four people in our readership will get. Electronic Arts has bought Bioware and Pandemic, in an exciting two-for-one offer. Let’s quote the bit about the money, as money is all that matters in our world.
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.
Er… VG Holding group is the kind of corporate structure for Bioware/Pandemic. What’s notable about this deal is that it follows closely from 2005, where Elevation invested 300 million in forming the Bioware/Pandemic partnership in the first place. Hmm.
Oh - interviews on the sale over at Gamespot from Bioware and Gamedaily for Pandemic.
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Tags: Bioware, Electronic-Arts, Elevation, if-electronic-arts-have-a-spare-few-hundred-million-lef, Pandemic
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Stick says:
… hold me. I’m afraid.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Thiefsie says:
Well we all know Baldur’s Gate 2k8 will be better anyway
October 12th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Shinan says:
Except of course that the D&D license is held by someone else. (I have no idea who. ATARI?)
So we’ll Get Labdur’s Entrance 08 instead, set in the Remembered Kingdoms setting.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Iain says:
Joking aside, I’m more worried about the implications for the KotOR MMORPG Bioware were rumored to be making… Can you really see LucasArts wanting an EA-owned company making a Star Wars game?
No, me neither. Still, on the plus side, at least it means no more Battlefront games.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
The_B says:
At what point should we start calling you “The Award Winning Kieron Gillen” anyway?
October 12th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
The_B says:
At least you can use the new one as a handy paperweight.
Or doorstop.
Or throw it at kids poking around in the garden. Bloody kids.
October 12th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Nick says:
Darth Vader ‘nooooooooo!’ anyone?
October 12th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Brant says:
Great disturbance in the force, millions of voices suddenly silenced, et cetera.
October 13th, 2007 at 2:14 am
WCAYPAHWAT says:
are the D&D/Star Wars licences even ongoing things, or are they awarded to developers on a case by case basis?
also, i miss the old TSR intro logo splash thingy…..big dragons and stuff. rarrr
October 13th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Shinan says:
The licenses are owned by publishers (who probably have them bought for a limited time). For example ATARI owns the D&D license right now and had Troika develop Temple of Elemental Evil, BioWare develop Neverwinter Nights, Obsidian develop Nieverwinter Nights 2 and Turbien develop D&D Online. All of these games are published by Atari but developed by, either in-house teams or independent teams.
Star Wars is the same. LucasArts publishes all the games but the games themselves are made by different studios (Knights of the old Republic by Bioware, Knights of the Old Republic 2 by Obsidian)
October 13th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Crispy says:
Oh ffs. I assume we have to watch out language here, or I’d probably hit the character limit with expletives…
October 13th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - PC Gaming » Blog Archive » Sith and Make Up says:
[...] seems that Electronic Arts purchasing Bioware (and Siamese-twin developers Pandemic) recently hasn’t put an end to their long standing relationship with Lucasarts. Bioware and Lucasarts [...]
October 30th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
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Well, at least we’ll get Baldur’s Gate 3 now. And Baldur’s Gate 4, 5, 6, 7 and Baldur’s Gate: Kobold Baseball 2012…
October 12th, 2007 at 4:02 pm