EA Renews Digital Illusions Deal

We reported last week on EA's bid on DICE, the makers of BF1942, and their lack of success at winning the shareholders over. This week GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that EA has revised the proposal in hopes of swaying those finicky stockholders. From the article: "However, EA's latest move conditions the offer upon a lower acceptance level of more than 50 per cent of the total number of shares - representing more than 50 per cent of the capital and votes in DICE after dilution due to an employee option programme launched in 2002." Update: 12/21 19:18 GMT by Z : Fixed broken link.

Comments

EA's motives?

[Nevita]

From the looks of it, EA is really serious about buying up as many development studios as is feasible. Here's a possible reason for it:

Steam. EA sees Steam as a way (rightly so) for developers to get a much larger chunk of the money in the gaming industry. So, they buy a bunch of developers who produce decent games to prevent such a move. That way, EA can ensure it maintains its revenue.