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EA outbids Rockstar to acquire DiRT studio Codemasters for $1.2 billion

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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.
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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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orangy57

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DiRT has been going kinda downhill since 4, and DiRT 5's tiny map pool was a huge letdown. I'm fine sticking with Dirt 3 and Rally for the rest of my days but it's a shame to know that the franchise is doomed to be littered with microtransactions and even lazier content in the future. I'm interested to see if EA is going to try to shake up the series though since I own most of the titles and they're all basically the same game.
 
diggeloid

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This seems like a perfect acquisition for EA, the company that releases the same game every year with nothing but a name change. I see the EA sports logo getting slapped onto one of the more popular franchises, and all the others quietly disappearing. The F1 series already has the yearly release thing going for it, so that might be the one that survives.
 
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Back in the day, EA Racing Games in the Need for Speed franchise were more about Arcade-style action, which had a good release once in a while, my favourite being Porsche Unleashed.

Codemasters releases, however, were always the one PC Gamers played for the Racing Simulation genre because they seemed to have a better handle in coding their Garage line-up for that feel; I remember when only Codemasters and Polyphony Digital were the top-tier Developers for Racing.

Granted these days there is competition from Forza and Assetto Corsa on the PC for the diehard Simulation fans, especially with VR, but I guess EA wants some of that Codemasters coding magic to make their Garage feel authentic, too. Unfortunately, though, I'm one of the people of the opinion that the Need for Speed franchise stay in the Arcade realm, but with an Open-World with actual people like GTA, so I don't see how Codemasters' IP nor coding contribution will help with that.

If I want a just-right Simulation mix, I'm perfectly fine playing the Gran Turismo franchise and watching their World Championships.
 
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eyeliner

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Codemasters are a far cry from the PSX days.

At the time, they were the absolute best, and more worthy of EA's money.

But 1.2 billion is a lot of money. EA, again, bought the IPs and not the talent.

Codemasters bosses will get a nice retirement package and the rest of the team will go elsewhere, probably forming another studio to make spiritual successors to beloved franchises that no one will pickup up, leading to the studios demise and developers scattering everywhere.

Business as usual.
 
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