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EA buys Codemasters for $1.2 billion

F1 with possible esports potential. Not to mention subscription service. EA probably have a lot of gaming racing licenses too.
EA is positioning itself as sports subscription service basically with some additional games.

But now...Add games to EA Play + GamePass :messenger_bicep:
 
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Gone

Banned
People here expecting this investment to be "awful", are you kidding me?
This will be huge for EA in the long term.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
The figure being thrown around for Warner Bros. Interactive was 4 billion dollars. EA having their trousers pulled down here.
 

Killer8

Member
The huge cost is probably the licensing fees. Codemasters not only have F1, they also recently picked up the WRC license.

Although their Ego engine looks relatviely nice, I wouldn't mind seeing some of the games running on Frostbite.*

*assuming EA doesn't gut them within 5 years
 

xiseerht

Member
Codemasters games have a great following and fans. They make their own game engine as well. The Dirt games , WRC games and the F1 games probable does better in sales then most people may thing .
 
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We Hollywood now.

5-7 puplishers holding a monopoly on western games.


XIVpf3B.jpg
 
Maybe Take-two wanted them to help build the next GTA. And EA fought to buy them to help in building their GTA-killer.

There's a lot of talent in Codemasters. If EA doesn't have a gaming studio in London, it could be their gateway to British talents.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
I think EA makes more sense to buy them than Take Two. EA Sports has license for FIFA, Madden, UFC, NHL, NBA...so F1 doesn't looks so out of place. It's another franchise they can release annually and they can have codemasters help with Need for Speed games.

Maybe Take-two wanted them to help build the next GTA. And EA fought to buy them to help in building their GTA-killer.

There's a lot of talent in Codemasters. If EA doesn't have a gaming studio in London, it could be their gateway to British talents.
I'm sure Take Two are just fine with Rockstar for GTA lol. what a stupid thing to say.

If Take Two really wanted a studio to help with GTA they'd could've done much better than Codemasters. only 2 games out of their last 25 games (since 2011) have NOT been a racing game. 1 of them was Onrush (another car game...) and the other was Overlord (RPG).
 
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ksdixon

Member
This buying/consolidating is getting to be a WEEKLY occurance. Sony need to pull their finger out of their arse to be frank.

The very least they can do is shore-up the dev houses that work closely with them, before they get purchased by facebook (read at dawn) or someone else; or go multiplatform (supermassive games, quantic dream)
 

danowat

Banned
It's really funny that SMS have gone full circle, moved away from EA to develop their own kind of game, now back with EA, NFS:Shift 3 incoming LOL
 

begotten

Member
This makes the Zenimax deal seem like a steal.

I posted recently about how $7.5B is grossly overestimated by a lot of people (which isn't their fault since they're not in the industry obviously). People will end up being surprised what MS really get out of that deal in the long-term. This EA purchase, is a more realistic figure of a full acquisition.
 

EDMIX

Member
They haven't released a non-driving game for 5 years, but I reckon EA want SMS & Evo staff to developer the next NFS.

Maybe, 1 billion sounds like a lot just to do all that. I think they want to branch out and have that F1 stuff, Rally stuff, open world racing stuff etc. ....stuff lol

Not to say you are wrong either as for all we know they really are staffing up for some mega Need For Speed re-re-reboot
 

Mentat02

Banned
F1 with possible esports potential. Not to mention subscription service. EA probably have a lot of gaming racing licenses too.
EA is positioning itself as sports subscription service basically with some additional games.

But now...Add games to EA Play + GamePass :messenger_bicep:
codemasters f1 has esports. the official f1 teams sponsor and pay the guys who drive their cars in esports.
 
This makes the Zenimax deal seem like a steal.
I really dont get this price. They only make racing games, and they almost always underperform sales wise (even though i buy most of them lol).

Licensed racing games - EA will know how to use those properties to print billions.

Just wait for F1 Ultimate team or other such crap :D
 

wipeout364

Member
Not sure how I feel about this. The question that really needs to be asked is do we feel better with Codemasters being owned by Take two or EA?
if you asked me two years ago I might have said Take 2 but I would almost think EA is better with Zampella in charge and many of EA’s moves in the last 24 months.
 

Riven326

Banned
Why? Codies hasn't done jack shit for years. Nobody cares about their racing games anymore. They fucked up Flashpoint twice.
 
I seriously think a lot of people undervalue their output and take them for granted.

They won't last long under EA. They'll become a corporate husk in a matter of years. They're gonna get gutted for talent and EA will purely ride on the name like other studios before them.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I keep seeing people think that the Bethesda deal was now a steal. Just because 1 and 7 are close doesn't mean 1billon and 7billon are close. Not at all. A billion is a very big amount, so a difference between 1 billion and 7 billion is an astronomical difference.
 
Not sure how I feel about this. The question that really needs to be asked is do we feel better with Codemasters being owned by Take two or EA?
if you asked me two years ago I might have said Take 2 but I would almost think EA is better with Zampella in charge and many of EA’s moves in the last 24 months.
EA at least doesn't put paid stuff in SP modes like t2 i guess
on the other hand t2 usually makes better games
 

Unknown?

Member
Fuck me, the Bethesda deal for MS was an absolute steal in comparison.

Wtf does Codemasters even make nowadays apart from coma-inducing Rally games?

Anyway, EA, we all know how it'll end it up....
It'll end up how most EA and Microsoft studios that underperformed do. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the Zenimax studios also get shut down.
 

Damigos

Member
I am tired of watching comments like “how are they worth 1,2 b! Its a waste of money” etc.
That studio was the last indipedent dev/publisher that made actual good racing games and also had other studios under its umbrella.
The problem here is that we all know what EA has done with the studios they bought.
Grid, F1, Dirt, Micromachines and many other franchises dating from 1986 (!) will probably be dead in a year.
As a racing genre fan and probably expert (i have over 40 racing games plats on PS) and having played almost all of Codemasters’ games i am extremenly dissappointed with this result.
Its not only Codemasters that goes down the rabbit hole-trash can like so many other studios bought by EA, its the racing games as a genre.
 

Mahavastu

Member
I am tired of watching comments like “how are they worth 1,2 b! Its a waste of money” etc.
That studio was the last indipedent dev/publisher that made actual good racing games and also had other studios under its umbrella.
The problem here is that we all know what EA has done with the studios they bought.
Grid, F1, Dirt, Micromachines and many other franchises dating from 1986 (!) will probably be dead in a year.
As a racing genre fan and probably expert (i have over 40 racing games plats on PS) and having played almost all of Codemasters’ games i am extremenly dissappointed with this result.
Its not only Codemasters that goes down the rabbit hole-trash can like so many other studios bought by EA, its the racing games as a genre.
Codemasters had a fulltime yearly revenue 76 million british pounds and an operating profit of 16mio pounds.
The evaluation of 1.2 billions is quite a challenge.

I like their headline of the 2020 anual report:
FOR OVER 30 YEARS CODEMASTERS HAS BEEN PUSHING BOUNDARIES
2020 WAS NO DIFFERENT.
WE’VE ONLY JUST STARTED.

and half a year later they are gone...
 
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Shubh_C63

Member
I think its worth the investment.
They can probably take losses for many years till they put out a single GO TO Racing game of next gen and all that investments in form of microtransactions can be made back. Car racing Sport game seems a perfect fit for their usual business practice.

But...now they got 1-2 studios with specialty in racing games. Putting out more than 1 racing game is a terrible decision. and I doubt EA can muster with innovative with racing.

or they won another 10 years of Star Wars rights and wanna make Star Wars This is Pod Racing!! game. (but not for switch because that would make sense)
 
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