Electronic Arts announced today that it has reached an agreement with the Board of Codemasters for the recommended acquisition of Codemasters. In the transaction, Codemasters’ shareholders will be entitled to receive 604 pence (approximately US$7.98*) in cash for each ordinary share of Codemasters with an implied enterprise value of US$1.2 billion. The acquisition is anticipated to be completed in the first quarter of calendar 2021.
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. We feel this union would provide an exciting and prosperous future for Codemasters. This will also allow our teams to create, launch and service bigger and better games to an extremely passionate audience.”
Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, also added:
“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 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. It will also allows us to deliver more industry-defining racing experiences to a global fan base. We are happy that both our Boards of Directors are recommending this transaction. We look forward to welcoming such an exciting and talented team to the Electronic Arts family.”
It’s worth noting that Codemasters was previously in talks with Take-Two. However, it appears that EA’s proposal was better than Take-Two’s offer.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Another dead studio
dead
RIP Codemasters, I liked your Rally games and Operation Flashpoint.
Veterans OF players never liked it that much, but it is an ok game, shame the series never recovered.
“Shame the series never recovered”
It’s called ARMA
didn’t codemasters make overlord?
R.I.P 1986-2020
Damn this is bad news for the F1 Franchise! Can’t wait for F1 Ultimate Team…
EA had some good F1 games in the early 2000’s but it’s not the same company anymore.
Goodbye, Codemasters.
Awesome!
More games join EA Play ?
EA needs to die
EA is alive and will be alive, you can think of it as dead in your dreams?
I didn’t say it was dead. Clearly its not. A dead company couldn’t absorb the many beloved developers it has over the years only to dissolve them shortly after. Or sell re-hashed garbage year after year with the smallest improvements possible (ie. every EA sports game). Or pioneer the predatory loot box gambling systems that are now close to being outlawed in Europe. Or patent in-game mechanics designed to match online players with players who have bought pay-to-win DLC, in order to bully them into buying it too. EA is EVERYTHING wrong with modern gaming.
pay-to-win DLC
loooool
WTH,What are you talking about? its been 3 years that EA Don’t released DLC for his game
https://nichegamer.com/2019/10/09/ea-file-patent-that-encourages-microtransaction-purchases-through-creating-a-sense-of-urgency-and-devaluing-items/
Next they will rename it, force them to develop some garbage NFS spin off, it will flop, studio gets shut down.
MS should have aquired Codemasters imo.
Worst than that, they will told them to develop F1 games only using Frostbite
would have been nice.. ms does know how to make racing games, would have been a great fit
Codemasters was desperate to sell, they tried Take 2 ended with EA.
A little worried because i’m an F1 series player, no telling what happens to it now.
so they finally have a studio that can actually make a NFS game worth playing. and lol slightly mad studio though that they could have gotten away from EA lol now back to making the shift series that’s good though.
slightly mad studio is really mad now ?
Still remember their Madbox console lol
lol
hmm, Im also heard about it when Criterion bought by EA
they did a good job with NFS MW 2012 but they should let code master take a shot and plz for the love of god dont use EA’s engines to create the game
Very bad news
There’s always room for one more on the chart Codemasters:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05921f2113b7bdf7a67c0d81733d69a341487b373573d419ab83565554d1e4eb.jpg
RIP to these classic studios
https://media2.giphy.com/media/l1BgSw1KnTDU0euUE/giphy.gif
A Denuvo loving studio is bought by a Denuvo loving publisher. Nothing to see here folks. Let’s just keep the line moving and the isles clear. A piece of Schitt buying a piece of Schitt. Nothing lost here.
Codemasters also act as a publisher , so they technically bang Denuvo together now
Only F1 has denuvo. Maybe DiRT 5 too.
Should have buy naughty dog….
They can’t buy a Sony studio.
But they can buy Sony ?? Will cost them one year of Ultimate Team Revenue
Money : This one has no idea what i can do.
R.I.P Dirt, Grid, project cars and Dirt Rally and racing games other than yearly F1 franchise…
Rest in Peace cody.
I`ll give it 4 years tops before Codies enters the EA Graveyard of devoured developers.
ANNNNDDDDDD…. it’s dead.
Press F
RIP Codemasters, RIP Dirt and GRID series, it was starting to put abusive microtransactions in it, now it will be worse. Such a shame for such amazing racing videogames.
RIP Codemasters
lol it’s funny how they try to portray this as something positive, but everybody in the comments is like “farewell, Codemasters”…?
It’s true, though. Another one bites the dust!
Thanks God for indie developers.
Soon, there won’t be any triple-A developers who are still worth anything…
F for Take-Two.
Cant wait for GRID Ultimate Team ???????
Already TBH. Game had 3 seasons released in a year.
They destroyed football, now they will destroy F1.
Dont you want to buy an In Form Hamilton card on F1 Ultimate Team ? ??
C’mon guys did EA kill Respawn Entertainment?! They did a good job with Apex Legends.
Not really, game is trash.
They released titanfall 2 on the worst day ever. they can still be shitheads from time to time.
They just wanted to kill Respawn silently by told them to release games on the worst day over, but luckily respawn is hard to kill
Why worst day?
Yes, Respawn latest games are Apex Legends which is awful in every way and Medal of Honor VR which is even worse.
If they aren’t killed it’s because Zampella has some well known executive power at this point.
I don’t expect them to last long even with that though.
AAA is a dead model regardless
Apex Legends has over 70 millions players and it is about to hit $500 million in revenue this year for EA. So it is successful by business point of view. You say it is awful game but numbers tell different story.
How do sales numbers translate into game quality you troglodyte?
Think for once in your life!
Many people enjoying a mediocre product does not make it good entertainment.
Yea people spend hours every day playing a game that does not entertain them good enough according to you. Nice logic dingbat.
“that does not entertain them good enough”
My whole point was that that mediocre garbage entertains them good enough
Going to defend FIFA and it’s fans too?
they just purchase brands, talents leave as soon as EA buys them.
Please correct your title. EA has not acquired Codemasters, it just outbid Take-Two with a recommendation of seeling Codemasters to EA which has to be approved by shareholders. Acquisition is far from done.
They already reached an agreement with the Codemasters board.
Incoming Need for Speed : Rally, fallowed by NFS : Shift reboot.
rip codemastares
R.I.P Codemasters again!!
It is the second time got dead this company
Oopss so sorry again!!!
EA is like a black hole that eat everything lol
RIP Codemasters I give the studio 3 more years of life.