EQ Acquires Mythic

[Trimethicon]

There is no god..................

EA To Acquire Mythic Entertainment

Studio Recognized Worldwide for Top Development Talent, Critically Acclaimed Franchises and Ground-Breaking Online Experiences

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 2006--Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS - News) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Virginia-based Mythic Entertainment®. Upon completion of the acquisition, Mythic Entertainment will become EA Mythic, a wholly-owned studio dedicated to developing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Mythic is recognized worldwide for revolutionizing the online gaming space with the award-winning Dark Age of Camelot® and is currently developing Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning(TM) under license agreement with Games Workshop.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close during EA's second quarter of fiscal 2007. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Mark Jacobs, the President, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Mythic, will become Vice President, General Manager of EA Mythic. Rob Denton, the Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Mythic will assume the role of Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of EA Mythic. Mythic's 175-person development team will remain in Fairfax, Virginia.

"Mythic has always been a leading independent developer in the online space," says Mark Jacobs, CEO and co-founder of Mythic Entertainment. "EA's commitment to the online market as well as its focus on creating games of unsurpassed quality, scope and scale gives us opportunities and resources we could only dream about in the past."

"The addition of Mythic to the EA family reflects our deep commitment to the online gaming market worldwide. Mythic will bring one of the industry's most talented MMORPG teams to EA. Together, we will create games that will introduce MMO players to a whole new level of game play and excitement," said Paul Lee, President, EA Studios.

[Givias]

If you look real close...you can see Warhammer going down the toilet...see the speck?

-G

[Delim]

Goodbye Independent thinking.
Hello corporate control.

[Falcolas]

Can I be the first to say it? It always could'a been Sony that acquired them...

[Webtroll]

Originally Posted by Falcolas

Can I be the first to say it? It always could'a been Sony that acquired them...

considering the title "EQ Aquires Mythic" that's what I was expecting to read

[french frogg]

here is the official link http://www.mythicentertainment.com/p...6EAMythic.html

i'm really surprised few weeks ago mark jacobs told to the WAR fans community that there's no reason for a such thing to happen and now this will be finalized for mid 2007 (previous date for WAR launching ), i feel very disappointed cause mythic was for me a good independant studio and i was expecting a lot from them.

now i wait the worst, when i saw what SOE have done with the SWG licence, i'm not sure that big studio can be very trustable (not sure of that word correct me if it's wrong) concerning the gamers interrest.

what you think about it in general and especially for WAR ?

[PeteG]

It isn't neccesarily a bad thing, at least as far as Warhammer Online is concerned. There have been cases where EA have bought a company and their next couple of releases have still been good. Though they usually go down the hole eventually.

Examples (and some well recieved games released after EA takeover):
DICE (BF1942)
Maxis (SC3K, SimCity4, The Sims, The Sims 2)
Bullfrog (Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate Wars)
Origin (Ultima Online, Strike Commander, System Shock 2)
But aside from Maxis (in my opinion anyway) all those studios eventually went to crap ...

I'd say that the worst possible scenario for WAR is something like UO - a fantastic game for a few years, but once players get bored and start leaving EA will try to "fix it" but end up ruining it.

[JuJutsu]

Originally Posted by Webtroll

considering the title "EQ Aquires Mythic" that's what I was expecting to read

Ditto. The news could be worse.

[Marchosias]

Hopefully EA will just keep their hand-off and let Mythic do their job with WAR, but we're just gonna have to wait and see.

I also read that "EQ Aquires Mythic" and immediately groaned fearing SOE had gotten their slimy hands on Mythic - thank goodness it wasn't THAT bad :P I would've had to sacrificially burned all of my DAoC CD's if that ever happened...

[Trimethicon]

Sorry about the subject reading "EQ Acquires Mythic" - some kind of MMOG flashback slip.