Take-Two Wouldn't Be EA's First Acquisition

Feature Article

Submitted on: 03/03/2008 by Chase Becotte

Back in 1982, Electronic Arts started out as a pioneering publishing house lead by founder and CEO Trip Hawkins. Fast forward 26 years and well, a lot has changed to say the least. Trip Hawkins left the company in 1991 to start the doomed 3DO console; in the same year Don Mattrick's old company, Distinctive Software, became the first major acquisition by EA -- Mattrick later became president of EA, and is presently the Senior VP of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, which happens to be Peter Moore's former job.

Now those are just two major players from Electronic Arts' past, yet with all this Take-Two buyout talk going on, many people want to know what would happen to Take-Two and specifically 2K Sports if such an acquisition occurred. Well no one in the general public knows that for sure, but we here at OS thought it would be a good idea to point out what other studios EA has acquired in the past. So as you all read this article, treat it like a lesson in history more than anything else.

1991: Distinctive Software. The company was started in 1982 by Don Mattrick. In 1991 the company was bought for $11 million and in 1999 became part of EA Canada.

1992: Origin Systems. This company was responsible for the Ultima franchise, as well as the Wing Commander franchise. Richard Garriott, John Romero, and Warren Spector all were a part of the company at one point or another. Garriott actually co-founded the company but left in 2000 to form a new company. Origin lived on until it was shut down in 2004.

1995: Bullfrog Productions. Peter Molyneux co-founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987 and later created Populous while working there. He left Bullfrog in 1997 and went on to form Lionhead Studios, a studio best known today for the Fable and Black & White franchises. Bullfrog Studios was closed in 2000.

1996: Manley & Associates. The studio became EA Seattle and was later shut down in 2002.

1997: Maxis. Maxis was known for Sim City as well as The Sims. EA took a slower pace moving away from the Maxis brand because it was a well known name in the industry. Some of the employees such as Will Wright still remain with EA even though in 2004 Maxis was rolled into the new EA Redwood Shores studio.

1998: Tiburon Entertainment. Tiburon Entertainment became EA Tiburon and now creates games such as Madden NFL and Tiger Woods.

1998: Westwood Studios. This studio was purchased for $122.5 million and was best known for the Command & Conquer series, and Dune II. The studio was later closed in 2003.

1999: Kesmai. Kesmai, sometimes known as GameStorm, was a studio that was just emerging and was becoming known for making MMOGs. The studio was closed in 2001.

2000: DreamWorks Interactive. The studio became EA Los Angeles.

2002: Black Box Games. The studio was then renamed EA Black Box. At the time of being purchased Black Box had been creating the NHL 2K series. After becoming a part of EA, EA Black Box took over development for the Need for Speed franchise.

2003: Studio 33. The company was then renamed EA North West.

2004: NuFx. At the time this company was purchased the employees were already creating the NBA Street series as well as Fight Night. The studio then became EA Chicago, and later closed in 2007.

2004: Criterion Software. Criterion was bought for $79 million and has to this day retained its name. The company is best known for Burnout, BLACK, and the now flamed out Renderware middleware tech.

2005: Hypnotix. This studio is now a part of EA Tiburon.

2005: JAMDAT Mobile. JAMDAT was purchased and then renamed EA Mobile. The company was originally bought for $680 million and was EA's way of getting into the mobile game marketplace.

2006: Mythic Entertainment. The company was then renamed EA Mythic. This is another company that was creating MMORPGs. Currently the studio is creating Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

2006: Phenomic. The company was then renamed EA Phenomic.

2006: DICE. This is the company best known for Battlefield 1942 and currently the new IP Mirror's Edge. Back in 2006 the studio was bought for $24 million, and at the time of the acquisition EA already owned two thirds of the company's stock. The DICE London, Ontario studio was shut down hours after the purchase.

2006: Headgate Studios. The studio became EA Salt Lake.

2008: BioWare Corporation/Pandemic Studios. BioWare is best known for KOTOR and Mass Effect; Pandemic is best known for Mercenaries. The studios were purchased for $620 million.

Member Comments

# 1 BlyGilmore @ 03/03/08 01:02 PM

very good read. not sure if anybody else notices a trend there.

while i'm into sports gaming i'm also an MMO player. i can say the buzz from Mythic over their Warhammer game has been less than stellar since EA bought them. In fact the game was supposed to be released before Christmas and has been constantly pushed back.

So far all signs are pointing toward that being another classic EA failure - but time will tell.

# 2 Lintyfresh85 @ 03/03/08 01:54 PM

Where have I seen all of that before... seems so familiar.

# 3 DaveDQ @ 03/03/08 03:18 PM

They kept several of the names, just added EA into it. The article is informative, but I don't think it's an indicator as to what EA will do with Take Two, specifically, 2K Sports. I'm not saying this exact article is claiming this, but we've got to lose this notion that EA is deliberately "evil" and wishes only to destroy the gaming industry. They have released some quality titles as of late.

# 4 ChaseB @ 03/03/08 04:06 PM

I'm not trying to pass any judgments I simply listed the purchases and what has happened with them to the present. If I was trying to make it an editorial I would point out that Bullfrog, Maxis, and Westwood were probably mismanaged, but now recently DICE, Criterion, Black Box, and now BioWare/Pandemic are being handled better...among other angles I could have taken.

# 5 mgoblue @ 03/03/08 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slizeezyc


	I'm not trying to pass any judgments I simply listed the purchases and what has happened with them to the present. If I was trying to make it an editorial I would point out that Bullfrog, Maxis, and Westwood were probably mismanaged, but now recently DICE, Criterion, Black Box, and now BioWare/Pandemic are being handled better...among other angles I could have taken.

Another thing to ponder would be if these smaller developers can even survive alone nowadays, compared to the early 90's. The cost of creating a game has drastically skyrocketed, and even if a company makes a great game it might not be enough to survive. Not every company can be Rockstar and stumble on the GTA series. Buyouts happen in business all the time because the smaller companies hit on something big but are usually unable to take things to the next level.

# 6 ChaseB @ 03/03/08 04:32 PM

Right, and yea it is getting tougher because stock holders want to see the growth as the years progress, and so sometimes these studios just can't meet the expansion. I assume at some point you reach a tipping point where it's self sustaining but still, I think like movies, games might just have to go down that 4-5 major labels route that movies are now in, since the industry just keeps exploding more and more expansion keeps happening.

# 7 Lintyfresh85 @ 03/03/08 05:24 PM

You mean all that info in the article wasn't lifted straight from Wikipedia? They may disagree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_arts

# 8 ChaseB @ 03/03/08 06:28 PM

Unfortunately no, it wasn't all lifted from Wiki.

# 9 DLaren @ 03/03/08 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlyGilmore


	very good read. not sure if anybody else notices a trend there. while i'm into sports gaming i'm also an MMO player. i can say the buzz from Mythic over their Warhammer game has been less than stellar since EA bought them. In fact the game was supposed to be released before Christmas and has been constantly pushed back. So far all signs are pointing toward that being another classic EA failure - but time will tell.

I'm also a fan of the MMO genre and Warhammer is definitely getting it's share of hype within the MMO community; from what I've read, most people on MMO-themed forums have said that they're more excited about Warhammer than they are about Age of Conan or the next WOW expansion. I'd expect EA to really heat-up the advertising campaign when this game nears its release.

I also view the delay of Warhammer as a good thing because it indicates to me that EA isn't rushing Mythic to get the game out of the door before it's ready...But as you said, time will tell.

# 10 ChaseB @ 03/03/08 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DLaren


	I'm also a fan of the MMO genre and Warhammer is definitely getting it's share of hype within the MMO community; from what I've read, most people on MMO-themed forums have said that they're more excited about Warhammer than they are about Age of Conan or the next WOW expansion. I'd expect EA to really heat-up the advertising campaign when this game nears its release. I also view the delay of Warhammer as a good thing because it indicates to me that EA isn't rushing Mythic to get the game out of the door before it's ready...But as you said, time will tell.

Yea I'm with you on the delay part. I've heard they increased the amount of people working on the game, and release that to gain some market share from games like WoW you need to come out strong. I've also read from one major publisher that it would take like a $1 billion initial investment to really compete with WoW, which is crazy to think about.

# 11 ChaseB @ 03/03/08 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lintyfresh85


	Did you actually read the page I linked? I'm pretty sure you'll see that's exactly what you did. Copying a list and adding commentary to each piece of information does not equal writing an article. There's no reason not to use Wiki... but if you're going to lift it, at least cite it.

I honestly didn't use that Wiki page so I don't know what else to say there. I did use some Wiki pages as well as other sites etc but just didn't source them within the article because it was an accumulation and pick and pull more than a direct thing and plus it's common public knowledge.

If you'd like I can pull up a bunch of the sites. Do you want me to post them in here?

# 12 ChaseB @ 03/03/08 11:29 PM

Actually just yea, here's some of the links. I used the CVG piece below as a primer of sorts and went from there. Looking back using the EA Wiki page probably would have been a lot easier I'm surprised I didn't think of it. I don't claim this is the meatiest or freshest piece, I simply tried to add a bit more to the acquisitions where applicable.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=183194

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate...gn_id=rss_null

http://info.ea.com/news/pr/pr454.htm

http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/...pdf&images=yes

https://www.cmpevents.com/GD08/a.asp...&V=3&id=188017

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Mattrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_Systems

http://info.ea.com/news/pr/pr787.pdf

http://kotaku.com/gaming/ea-grabs-tw...mic-309937.php

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...24/ai_16226827

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