EA to acquire the creators of Dirt and Project Cars for $1.2 billion
Electronic Arts has announced it plans to acquire Codemasters for the eye-watering price of $1.2 billion.
The British company was originally set to be acquired by Take-Two Interactive, but they were seemingly outbid significantly by Electronic Arts in recent weeks, who are now set to take complete ownership of the renown pioneers of the racing genre.
Electronic Arts is set to complete the acquisition of Codemasters in the first quarter of 2021, with Codemasters chairman Gerhard Florin stating that both companies “have a shared ambition to lead the video game racing category.”
“We feel this union would provide an exciting and prosperous future for Codemasters, allowing our teams to create, launch and service bigger and better games to an extremely passionate audience,” Florin said in a statement.
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EA CEO Andrew Wilson also commented on the recent news stating that “our industry is growing, the racing category is growing, and together we will be positioned to lead in a new era of racing entertainment.”
“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.”
Codemasters is one of the medium’s biggest creators of racing titles, handling properties such as Formula One, Dirt and Project Cars. Now, all of these will live under the umbrella of Electronic Arts, which is both a blessing a curse when you consider the company’s history of acquiring developers in the past.
The company’s most recent release was Dirt 5, which acted as a major launch title for PS5 and Xbox Series X. It’s pretty good, earning a solid 4/5 in our review: “Dirt 5 isn’t the next-gen technical showcase you were probably hoping for, but its excellent off-road tracks are an absolute delight.” It will be fascinating to see how Codemasters will operate alongside Electronic Arts, although we’ll waiting until next year to see how things pan out.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
