EA To Aquire Bioware, Pandemic Studios
We here at Chez Geek have a bevy of mysterious and shady sources at our disposal. Most of the time they just send us LOLcats pictures and heavily photoshopped Goatse references, but today they really came through!
Apparently, EA Games is set to purchase Bioware and Pandemic Studios, two of the most highly lauded RPG and open environment games producers respectively. With Mass Effect currently primed for release by Bioware (and several sequels already planned) and Mercenaries 2 on the way as well this is easily one of the best moves EA could have made.
EA will pay up to $620 million to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. (the owner of both Bioware and Pandemic Studioes) and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding Corp. EA has also agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition. While the monetary figures are pretty nifty, the most interesting bit about this whole buyout is the possibility that with this purchase Bioware might just stop putting out repetitive pap and produce an original IP.
What say you?!