EA set to pay $1.2 billion for Codemasters and its stable of racing games
Enlarge / Just some of the games that are set to become part of the EA umbrella early next year. (credit: Codemasters)
The board of directors for British developer Codemasters has reached a purchase agreement with Electronic Arts which would sell the company to the mega-publisher for an estimated $1.2 billion (or just under $8 a share) in early 2021.
The deal would put Codemasters' popular racing-game franchises—including DiRT/DiRT Rally, Grid, F1, and Project CARS (which Codemasters acquired in 2019)—under the same umbrella as EA's Need for Speed, Burnout, and mobile-focused Real Racing. That's not quite a monopoly in the genre—thanks in large part to console exclusives like Microsoft's Forza Motorsport and Sony's Gran Turismo—but it's as close as you're likely to find for any major genre in gaming.
More than that, the acquisition reflects a continuing trend toward consolidation among the game industry's biggest 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 more acquisitions to come); and Epic Games' purchase of Rocket League developer Psyonix, to name just a few.