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Electronic Arts has agreed to buy the stake of British developer Codemasters in a move that could see the American publishing giant seize control of the racing video game genre. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year for £ 6.04 (~ $ 7.98) per share, valuing Codemasters at around $ 1.2 billion.
Sky News first reported EA’s interest in Codemasters over the weekend, saying the British company had previously agreed to a $ 970 million deal with Rockstar Games and 2K Sports owner Take-Two Interactive. EA confirmed the deal early Monday morning.
Codemasters is one of the oldest British game developers, it was founded in the 80s and produced early hits like Dizzy for systems that were popular in the UK like the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64. In recent decades, he has been best known for creating racing games such as the Dirt, Gridand Formula 1 series, and last year acquired the developer behind Cars project.
EA, of course, owns the Need for speed franchise, so the addition of Codemasters would give it greater control over a large part of the racing game market. The main competitors would be Sony Great tourism and Microsoft Power series, which are exclusive to the respective platforms of their publishers.
“We believe that there is a profoundly compelling opportunity to bring Codemasters and Electronic Arts together to create amazing and innovative new racing games for fans,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a statement. “Our industry is growing, the racing category is growing, and together we will be positioned to lead a new era of racing entertainment.”
“Electronic Arts and Codemasters share an ambition to lead the gaming racing category,” says Codemasters President Gerhard Florin. “The Codemasters Board strongly believes that the company would benefit from EA’s knowledge, resources and broad global scale, both generally and specifically within the racing industry. We believe that this union will provide an exciting and prosperous future for Codemasters, allowing our teams to create, launch and service bigger and better games for an extremely passionate audience. ”
