Electronic Arts Inc. has reached an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire VG Holding Corp., the parent company of leading video game development studios BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios. The shops have a combined ten franchises under development, including six wholly owned titles, giving EA a stronger foothold in the action, adventure and role-playing markets.
Pandemic Studios’ leadership team of Andrew Goldman, Josh Resnick and Greg Borrud will join BioWare Corp.’s Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka in becoming part of the EA Games Label under president Frank Gibeau. BioWare is currently developing Mass Effect, which will be published by Microsoft in November, and is in the early development stages on a massively multiplayer online game. Pandemic Studios is setting out to redefine open-world games with its upcoming Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Saboteur, in addition to several unannounced projects.
Under the terms of the agreement, EA will pay up to $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp., and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees. EA will also assume outstanding VG Holding Corp. stock options and has agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition. The transaction is expected to close in January of 2008.
Bioware is best known for its Neverwinter Nights franchise and the Lucas Arts title Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Pandemic’s top games have included Star Wars Battlefront and Destroy All Humans!. Together, they employ roughly 800 people across four studios located in Edmonton, Canada; Los Angeles, Calif.; Austin, Texas; and Brisbane, Australia.
