After months of acquisition talks with various companies, Codemasters has voted in favor of being acquired by EA, finally closing a deal with the video game publisher. The vote was conducted remotely on Wednesday, February 3, with 63 of the 76 shareholders present opting for EA to purchase the company and welcome it into its roster of development studios.
The news comes two weeks after Codemasters' Executive Director Ian Bell, CEO Frank Sagnier, and CFO Rashid Varachia all agreed to vote in favor of the EA acquisition, and recommended shareholders to do the same. All that's left is for the deal to be officially sealed in a formal court hearing, which will allegedly take place on February 16, according to VGC.
EA will be acquiring Codemasters for $1.2 billion, getting its hands on the studio's line-up of licensed and owned IP in the process. In a Q3 financial presentation a few days ago, the publisher revealed it had big plans for the team and the franchises it has cultivated over the years. Going forward, EA said it will release a racing game on an annual basis, pulling from its new studio's lineup of titles and the handful of driving-based IP it already owns. That's a hefty list of major racing franchises, including the likes of Dirt, Grid, Burnout, Need for Speed, and Project Cars.
Codemasters also has licensed agreements through both the F1 and WRC: Fia World Rallying Championship franchises, which each have large, yearly audiences. EA hopes the acquisition will make it a global leader in the racing game market, which is hard to doubt considering it now owns several of the biggest IPs the genre has ever produced. Seeing as the publisher has mostly distributed arcade-y racers, it seems Codemasters' range of more realistic racing games will add a new string to its bow.
EA has been very active in the past few days, revealing details about several of its plans going forward. The studio will be delivering Mass Effect: Legendary Edition this May, bundling Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 into a comprehensive title that offers all the trilogy's DLC and some major visual enhancements. The company also cemented its decision to continue working on Star Wars games in spite of losing exclusive rights to the license, with EA CEO Andrew Wilson claiming the publisher wants to keep cultivating its relationship with Disney, Lucasfilm, and the Star Wars IP.
Source: VGC