EA outbids Rockstar to acquire DiRT studio Codemasters for $1.2 billion
Electronic Arts has jumped into a buyout-in-progress, suddenly outbidding Rockstar Games in order to purchase the development studio Codemasters. Rockstar had offered $970 million to acquire Codemasters, a British company behind racing games such as the DiRT series, Project Cars, GRID, F1, and others. However, before anything could be finalized, EA swooped in with a larger bid of $1.2 billion, an amount that Codemasters agreed to, with the buyout set to occur in Q1 2021.
“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,”said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts.
With EA currently also owning the Need for Speed franchise, this move gives them a large control over the racing game genre. The CEO of Codemasters hopes that the buyout will allow them to create "bigger and better games to an extremely passionate audience".
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