The board of directors of British developer Codemasters has reached a purchase agreement with Electronic Arts that would sell the company to the mega publisher in early 2021 for an estimated $ 1.2 billion (or just under $ 8 per share).
The deal would include Codemasters’ popular racing game franchises DiRT / DiRT Rally, Grid, F1, and Project CARS (which Codemasters acquired in 2019) – under the same umbrella as EA’s Need for speed, Burnoutand aimed at mobile devices Real racing. That’s not quite a monopoly in the genre – largely thanks to console exclusives like Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport and those of Sony Gran Turismo– but it’s as close as you’re likely to find to any major genre in gaming. In fact, the acquisition reflects a continuing trend toward consolidation among the game industry’s largest publishers. That’s a trend that includes Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda Softworks (as well as other smaller studios in 2018); Sony’s purchase of Insomniac Games last year (and the stated potential for even more acquisitions); and Epic Games’ purchase of Rocket League developer Psyonix, just to name a few.
The acquisition would also likely make Codemaster’s current and future titles part of the EA Play subscription service and, by extension, part of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Aside from its modern racing sims, Codemasters has a legacy catalog dating back to the days of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, with titles such as Micro machines and the Dizzy platform adventure series that were especially popular in the UK.
EA’s new purchase agreement surpasses a similar agreement reached with fellow mega publisher Take Two last month, which was valued at just under $ 1 billion. Take Two has a limited time before its planned purchase date for the first quarter of 2021 if it wants to raise the offer one more time.
“The combination of Codemasters and Electronic Arts will enable the development and delivery of a market-leading portfolio of creative and exciting racing games and content to more platforms and more players around the world,” the companies said in a joint statement.
“Electronic Arts and Codemasters have a shared ambition to lead the video game racing category,” added Codemasters Chairman Gerhard Florin. “Codemasters’ board of directors is firmly convinced that the company would benefit from EA’s knowledge, resources and extensive global scale – both generally and specifically within the racing industry. We believe this union would provide an exciting and prosperous future for Codemasters. enabling our teams to create, launch and service bigger and better games for an extraordinarily passionate audience. ”