The deal between Take-Two and Codemasters will not take place. Suddenly, EA announced its desire to buy a British studio, which offered Dirt developers $ 200 million more.
Back in November Codemasters and Take-Two officially announced that at the beginning of next year the studio will join Take-Two. However, these plans failed to come true. According to GamesIndustry, the deal was “intercepted” by EA.
The company offered $1.2 billion for the purchase of Codemasters, while Take-Two gave only $980 million. At the same time, the takeover will end at the same time as originally planned — in the first quarter of 2021.
The chairman of the British studio Gerhard Florin has already commented on the new deal. According to him, Codemasters and EA share the same ambitions related to leadership in the genre of racing.
We believe that this alliance will provide Codemasters with an exciting and prosperous future. Our teams will be able to create, launch and maintain games of a larger size and better quality.
Head of Codemasters
Thanks to this purchase, EA’s portfolio will be replenished with several racing franchises at once: Formula One, Dirt, Grid and Project Cars. Previously, the publisher already had the rights to other well-known genre series, for example, Need for Speed, Burnout and Real Racing.
Note that the entire top management of Codemasters will retain their positions after the completion of the transaction. Among others, CEO Frank Sagnier and Finance Director Rashid Varachia will remain in their places.
Take-Two has not yet officially discussed what happened.