EA Buys Out a Game Studio After Shutting Another One Down 3 Weeks Ago (arstechnica.com)

EA has acquired the video game studio Respawn Entertainment. "The studio, co-founded by former Infinity Ward chiefs and Call of Duty co-creators in the wake of their departure from Activision, has been bought out in a deal whose total value could reach $455 million," reports Ars Technica. "The news by itself may seem odd, considering that EA shut down one of its other wholly owned studios, Visceral Games, only three weeks ago." From the report: A report from Kotaku sheds light on why EA made the move: as a response to another game publisher, Korea's Nexon, making a formal bid to buy Respawn outright. Nexon currently publishes a mobile spinoff of Respawn's Titanfall shooter series. Kotaku, citing sources close to the matter, claims that Nexon had bid to buy the company outright. EA exercised its contractual right to match the offer, Kotaku says, and it ultimately outbid Nexon. Among other things, the buyout preserves Respawn's continued work on an upcoming EA game set in the Star Wars universe; EA currently enjoys an exclusive license to making Star Wars-related video games, and any takeover by another company would have to resolve whether or how such a project would continue in production. Respawn's Star Wars project still does not have a title, a release date, or revealed gameplay footage. Respawn announced its work on an additional, unnamed VR game at Oculus Connect 4 last month; the EA statement says that project will continue apace, as well.

Comments

Re:It's what they do

[rtb61]

Shame about Bullfrog, as now would be a great time for a remake of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., as we look to be heading into that era, in a rather tepid fashion right now as the various corporations that control various governments look to be waging war on each other, the corporations that is via the governments they control, infinite greed simply demands it must occur and psychopathy will ensure it does occur, after a fashion. Early warning and active policing with investigation and prosecution will limit potentially extremely negative outcomes (keeping in mind biological warfare target agriculture, crippling digital infrastructure, directly attacking major investments in third party countries and disabling executive leadership via various means or at least subverting it).

All the US governments fault when they started to play the privatisation of war and espionage to maximise corporate profits. You have corporations developing and implement the skills and mind set of being permanently at war and with the developed skill of putting it into practise, with their profits being bound to directly actively murdering people. Stupid, stupid, stupid and you will pay a very severe price for that stupidity unless corrective actions are taken. Now that should make for good gaming ;D.