Rumor: EA on the prowl, looking to buy Epic Games

by Dustin Burg on Oct 3rd 2008 2:30PM

Rumor word coming from Game Guru is that Electronic Arts is in the market, not only for a developer, but also for a gaming engine. Believe it or not, EA is said to be looking to purchase Epic Games and the Unreal Engine. Gasp!

Game Guru claims that EA is looking to gobble up developers of established franchises and quality lineups, which Epic Games fits the bill with Gears of War and Unreal Tournament as well as the added bonus of the Unreal Engine. Seeing that EA's attempt at purchasing Take-Two ended in failure, it wouldn't be entirely out of the realm of possibility that EA would ponder the acquisition of a company who's engine (Unreal Engine 3) powers a good chunk of the industry's titles. Just think, the future could see EA owning exclusive rights to Unreal Engine 4 and somehow involved in GoW ... maybe? ... meh!

[Via Game Stooge]

Source

Tags: ea, epic, epic-games, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, rumor

Reader Comments (56)

Eh, I really doubt this one. EA already has a few studios which make good engines, and are working with most of the middleware developers already.

They have access to:
RenderWare (Criterion, not sure if it counts anymore)
Frostbite (DICE)
Aurora (Bioware)
id Tech 5 (id)
CryEngine 2 (CryTek)

and quite a few others.

Also, EPIC isn't on the stock market, so there won't be a hostile takeover like they tried with TakeTwo, and the top brass at the company seem determined to stay an independent studio.

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Mostly talking out my sphincter, but I couldn't find the EPIC Games symbol after 3 quick searches on Google. Also, an observation, why ANY game developed by an EA studio would use Unreal Engine 3 (Medal of Honor, looking at you.) makes no sense and is a seeming waste of money.

EA will be the downfall of the gaming industry,just look how sloppy they got with Madden franchise when they eliminated the competition.

I hate all the corporate crusade crap that keeps working its way into the gaming industry. The more money video games are worth the more they will keep attracting capitalists who only want to exploit video games and don't actually care about gaming at all. The worst thing is that their only goal is to jack up the price of video games even more.