2020 has been a wild year for the video game industry. Delays, canceled events, and online press conferences are just one aspect of the industry’s changes during 2020. Despite setbacks, the video game industry found ways to thrive and grow. Earlier this year in September, Microsoft announced the acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda, Arkane Studios, and id Software. In October, Rockstar Games announced that they had acquired Ruffian Games. Following the trend of acquisitions, Take-Two Interactive announced that they intended to purchase Codemasters; however, On December 14, 2020, EA announced that they had reached an agreement for the Acquisition of Codemasters.
This came as a surprise to the gaming community since Codemasters was in talks with Take-Two Interactive. In November, Take-Two offered Codemasters an offer of 983.36 million USD. Later on in the month, Take-Two and Codemasters agreed to a 994 million USD buyout; these offers were pending approval by their board, government bodies, and previous obligations. When discussing the potential acquisition, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said, “Codemasters’ racing games would fit well with its own roster of sports games.” Sadly for Take-Two Interactive, this will probably never happen.
The reason why we say this probably will not happen is due to the EA deal currently on the table. At the moment, Electronic Arts’ deal with Codemasters is still subject to approval. If the purchase for 1.2 billion goes through, EA will have access to the Dirt, F1, Overlord, and Grid franchises.
Statements Regarding the Acquisition
Gerhard Florin, the Chairman of Codemasters, said,
“Electronic Arts and Codemasters have a shared ambition to lead the video game racing category. The Board of Codemasters firmly believes the company would benefit from EA’s knowledge, resources and extensive global scale – both overall and specifically within the racing sector. We feel this union would provide an exciting and prosperous future for Codemasters, allowing our teams to create, launch and service bigger and better games to an extremely passionate audience.”
While Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, had this to say,
“We believe there is a deeply compelling opportunity in bringing together Codemasters and Electronic Arts to create amazing and innovative new racing games for fans. Our industry is growing, the racing category is growing, and together we will be positioned to lead in a new era of racing entertainment. We have admired Codemasters’ creative talent and high-quality games for many years. With the full leverage of EA’s technology, platform expertise, and global reach, this combination will allow us to grow our existing franchises and deliver more industry-defining racing experiences to a global fan base. We are pleased that both our Boards of Directors are recommending this transaction, and we look forward to welcoming such an exciting and talented team to the Electronic Arts family.”
What do you think of EA acquiring Codemasters? To learn more about why EA chose Codemasters, you can read the press release.
