Earlier today, Electronic Arts revealed that the company is actively seeking to purchase Take-Two Interactive.
EA has also put up a website answering some of our questions about what it would do with Take-Two; we also got Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter to comment on what he thinks is an inevitable purchase.
Clearly, this possible merger concerns gamers. EA has been criticized for buying small development studios with successful IPs, only to have them produce second-rate titles following the acquisitions. The company has also been known to close down acquired studios if their titles don't sell well.
In fact, at the DICE Summit held in early February, we reported that EA CEO John Riccitiello admitted that EA "blew it" when it came to keeping top-notch studios such as Origin, Bullfrog and Westwood prosperous; all three studios are now defunct.
With that in mind, we decided to put together an overview of EA's previous development studio purchases:
- 1991: Distinctive Software (now EA Canada); purchased for $11 million
- 1992: Origin Systems (now defunct)
- January 1995: Bullfrog Productions (now defunct)
- 1996: Manley & Associates (became EA Seattle, now defunct)
- July 1997: Maxis (folded into EA Redwood Shores)
- 1998: Tiburon Entertainment (now EA Tiburon)
- August 1998: Westwood Studios (now defunct); purchased for $122.5 million
- February 2000: DreamWorks Interactive (now EA Los Angeles)
- June 2002: Black Box Games (now EA Black Box/EA Canada)
- October 2003: Studio 33 (now EA North West)
- February 2004: NuFx (became EA Chicago, now defunct) [Thanks, guest.]
- August 2004: Criterion Software; purchased for a rumored 40 million pounds ($79 million)
- July 2005: Hypnotix (now part of EA Tiburon)
- December 2005: JAMDAT Mobile (now EA mobile); purchased for $680 million
- June 2006: Mythic Entertainment (now EA Mythic)
- August 2006: Phenomic (now EA Phenomic)
- October 2006: Digital Illusions CE; approx. $24 million
- November 2006: Headgate Studios (now EA Salt Lake)
- January 2008: BioWare Corp./Pandemic Studios; purchased for $620 million
Is Take-Two Interactive next?
