While it has been anything but quiet in terms of business for Electronic Arts, financial deals and standard practice for the monolith publishing company is going undeterred. And yes, this includes EA’s acquisition of Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment. In a recent blog post, Electronic Arts has officially confirmed that they have closed the deal on the once-independent studio.
If you are out of the loop, in early November Electronic Arts formally outlined their plans to purchase Respawn Entertainment — noting a staggering $455 million plan ($351 million if Respawn fails to hit certain performance goals). Of course, the announcement was an outline for an upcoming plan — not finalization.
There are many EA critics who hoped that the turbulence EA faced throughout November may have an impact on the deal, possibly even offering an opportunity for Respawn to leverage a better deal. However, according to that same blog post, EA has confirmed that the acquisition was closed “on the terms previously disclosed.”
But what is on the horizon for both Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. According to EA, Respawn currently is working on a new Titanfall game, a “VR experience,” and a Star Wars action game. Not only that, but the studio may be looking at a move to the Frostbite engine. Meanwhile, Electronic Arts has dropped hints (via the company’s CFO Blake Jorgenson) that he “certainly sees” that there are other studios “that “could become sub-scale over time and will want to be part of a large organization.” In layman’s terms, we may see some more EA acquisitions on the horizon.