The giant publisher EA is reportedly acquiring the developers of Titanfall, Respawn Entertainment. The CEO of the latter, Vince Zampella, confirmed the news in an interview with VentureBeat this afternoon. The acquisition is reported to be evaluated at $315 million in cash and stock, plus a possible bonus of $140 million. Yes, that's a lot of money for a developing studio that has been independent so far but understandable following the company's critically acclaimed titles.

"We’ve seen firsthand the world-class caliber of Respawn as a development studio with incredible vision, deep talent and an inspiring creative mindset,” said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, in a statement. “Our longtime partnership is grounded in a shared desire to push the boundaries and deliver extraordinary and innovative new experiences for players around the world. Together, we’ve brought this to life in the Titanfall franchise, and now with the Respawn team joining EA, we have exciting plans to accomplish even more amazing things in the future."

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

SOURCE

 

[AutumnWolf]

Never played titanfall but still... RIP

 

[the_randomizer]

EA, screwing over little studios one at a time, sounds like something Disney would do, and that's not a compliment

 

[ThoD]

There goes another decent dev studio... who do you guys think will be the next victim?

 

[linuxares]

tinyBuild! You're our last hope....

 

[Polopop123]

They’re gonna shit it down after some time like they did with Visceral. Cancerous cunts

 

[SonicfanCEMUTesting]

Well fuck. That means they will die sooner or later.

 

[Bladexdsl]

another franchise soon to be ruined by EA

 

[Deleted User]

Titanfall: FIFA Edition
I can see it now

 

[WhiteMaze]

EA is buying it?

Cheers to another Titan that will indeed Fall, in EA's hands.

RIP

 

[eriol33]

RIP respawn, your fans may miss you. I am not.

 

[Dr.Hacknik]

Isn't the CEO of respawn a dick though?

He seriously dissed the switch for it being underpowered... He can basically eat his words and his dick now.

 

[leon315]

EA buys Respawn in 2017
EA closes Respawn in 2018
RIP Respawn and it never Respawn again ((

 

[Cha0tic]

Ea is gonna put out the next titanfall but wait, the only way you can get a titan is by paying a micro transaction.
And once your titan is destroyed you need to buy another.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

EA most likely bought them for their IPs. Given their reputation, feels like they'll close the studio, lay off employees, but keep the ownership over the games.

Not to mention future games using the IP are no doubt going to be using Origin DRM.
I get that they're trying to compete with Steam but they're not doing a very good job at it and buying a game on Steam and STILL needing an Origin account to play it is just bullshit.

I dunno, that's pretty harsh to Disney. They want to profit off the competition, sure, but they don't want it to decline in quality after they've bought it. Thor: Ragnarok is my example A. Marvel is still kicking out fantastic shit, even polishing their formula a bit. Compare that to Bioware, whose last game was Mass Effect: Andromeda before being Old Yeller'd.

Not to excuse Disney for any of the terrible shit they have done, of course, but they do want to be profitable if nothing else. EA just wants to milk what they can from developers and fans of those developers before eliminating the competition completely. The upper and middle management are tyrants who provide poor working conditions, and that naturally causes all development quality under them to decline.

I don't mind Disney. People were worried about what they would do to Star Wars and so far all they have really done is bring it back from the ashes. The new movies are good too.

 

[TheDarkGreninja]

Never played that game anyway, and never will.

Pretty sure you're not missing out on anything.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Pretty sure you're not missing out on anything.

Of course not, a game without a single player? That is a new breed of games I never saw coming.

 

[shinrukus]

So I thought Respawn Entertainment is basically the dudes who used to work at Sledgehammer (or one of those dev studios for Call of Duty back in the day) who got sick of Activision's practices and "Respawn"ed to their new company because they wanted to be independent... sounds like they traded one pair of cuffs for another...