Just over a month ago, it appeared Take-Two was in the driver’s seat to acquire Codemasters, at a cool $956 million. Welp, guess who came knocking?
Yup, you guessed it. EA has now reached an agreement to purchase Codemasters for a smooth $1.2 billion, as they look to close the deal and make it official in the first quarter of 2021.
As many gamers know, Codemasters is the machine behind the popular F1 series, along with DIRT, DIRT Rally, GRID and Project CARS.
Here’s a couple of snippets from the Chairman of Codemasters, Gerhard Florin and CEO of Electronic Arts, Andrew Wilson, respectively.
“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 – both overall and specifically within the racing sector. 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.”
“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.”
