Quote:Electronic Art's purchase of Criterion means that Electronic Art's will be able to further expand the number of games they create with the help of the Guildford studio, which contains more then 60 developers.
The purchase also means that Electronic Arts now own the rights for the Burnout and Black franchises, which have been selling well recently. As with all purchases this will mean that Electronic Arts has a much wider library of staff and resources to create games for all consoles.
Along with Criterion Electronic Arts have essentially purchased their RenderWare technology, one that is used in about a quarter of games. The company will keep lending RenderWare to other companies but also work on RenderWare4 for the next generation consoles.
“This is a great fit,” said EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst. “Criterion offers us studio talent and a proven management team, globally recognized intellectual property and technology infrastructure that will accelerate our readiness on the next generation of consoles.”
“Combining EA’s tools and technology libraries with the existing RenderWare technologies will create a superior platform for game development,” said Criterion CEO David Lau-Kee. “This system will provide the most powerful common technological framework for creating great games. Our work on RenderWare4, combined with EA’s next generation efforts, will also boost development efforts on the next generation of consoles which are expected to debut over the next two years.”
“Our mission has always been to create exciting new franchises that appeal to the widest possible audience,” said Fiona Sperry, Head of Criterion Games. “Within EA, we can now secure our future as one of the world’s leading development studios.”
Another company for EA to gut and force to make tons of licensed games! Yay!
Cube-Europe
Has EA done this to small companies in the past?
I'm not too familiar with Criterion Software, actually... what games have they made?
I don't either... *searches*
Burnout.
Huh... I didn't know that! They did Sub Culture... cool...
They made Burnout 1 and 2.
Quote:Has EA done this to small companies in the past?
Probably.
Many. Anyone remember Westwood, Origin, or Bullfrog, for starters?
Bad news..
Those companies ABF mentioned made some of my favorite games before EA nabbed them. Along with many other small (and large) companies.
Burnout 2 is probably my very favorite game this generation. Luckily Burnout 3 is still on track (I played the demo at my local EB and it was SENSATIONAL). Can't wait.
Maxis still exists, though. I was talking about the ones they've finished off.
On that note, the second that Sims/Sim____ titles stop selling, Maxis will be the next to be gutted like all of its predecessors under the EA umbrella.
That's probably why Maxis has been focusing so much on The Sims, so that EA will leave them alone.
Well, some of the people behind Maxis exist, anyway... EA has ditched the name. :( They haven't been completely left alone... but unlike Origin, Bullfrog, or Westwood (actually that one is quite odd because I always thought of Command & Conquer as a good-selling series...) they are extremely successful. But I bet that even given this level of success in several years they'll go the way of those other once-successful companies. EA has a way of doing that...
Sure, EA isn't the only one that does that. A lot of small companies that get bought by big ones get drained of talent. But EA is the biggest so they're the best example.
As long as Will Wright stays at Maxis they'll continue to make great games, but as soon as he leaves quality will probably go way down and that'll be the end of Maxis.
Yep. Will Wright IS Maxis, and he always has been. The second he leaves is when you need to start selling Maxis stock.
Yeah, that's the best thing to do.
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Except I don't have any Maxis stock.