Posts tagged acquisition 
Riccitiello: EA backing away from big acquisitions, not buying Harmonix
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello revealed a core attribute that the megapublisher is prioritizing in the coming years: Thriftiness. He explained the company has no interest in pursuing more multi-million dollar acquisitions for now -- rather, he said the ...
Report: Bizarre Creations staff morale boosted by buyer talks
Develop reports that anonymous staffers at recently put-on-the-market development studio Bizarre Creations have claimed that morale around the offices has received a boost following a company meeting earlier today. According to Develop's sources, that meeting brought word that a number of ...
MachineGames developing under Bethesda, using id Tech 5
Mega-publisher ZeniMax Media made its acquisition of Swedish developer MachineGames official today, specifying that the studio would be working on multiplatform titles under ZeniMax's Bethesda banner. MachineGames' first unannounced project will be built using sibling studio id Software's id Tech 5 ...
Ubisoft brings online middleware dev Quazal into its brotherhood
On a bit of a spending spree this week, Ubisoft today added Montreal-based Quazal Technologies to the family. Creator of multiplayer middleware and services, Quazal has worked with Ubisoft for a number of years, and its products power components in a range of the publisher's titles, including this ...
Ubisoft Quebec adds a Longtail studio
Ubisoft has reached a deal to absorb 48 members of Longtail Studios Quebec into its own Quebec City studio, reports French-language outlet Le Soleil (Google translation). The acquisition will also result in a reported 5–6 staff layoffs and effectively closes Longtail's Quebec branch, though ...
Activision and Nintendo were involved in Rare bidding war, former Microsoft exec recounts
A classic industry tale of "D'oh" tells of how Activision missed an opportunity to buy Blizzard on the cheap a decade before the $18 billion merger. Here's the opposite tale: In 2002, it seems Activision dodged a bullet by losing out in a bidding war to purchase Rare. Microsoft ended up being the ...
EA purchasing mobile publisher Chillingo
EA is climbing to the top of the casual and iPhone game spaces -- by buying companies who are already at the top of those spaces. Reuters reports that EA is purchasing Chillingo, publisher of iOS hits like Cut the Rope (pictured), iDracula and (in the UK) Angry Birds. EA confirmed the purchase to ...
Arkane Studios acquired by Zenimax; new project to be announced soon
Even Bethesda can't resist releasing some (tangentially) BioShock-related news today. During QuakeCon, Bethesda's Pete Hines announced that parent company Zenimax has acquired Arkane Studios, who most recently worked on level design for BioShock 2. The developer is also responsible for Arx ...
Disney acquires social game dev Playdom for $563.2m
Disney Interactive today announced its acquisition of social game developer Playdom. Rumor of the deal surfaced late last week, when it was suggested that Disney was ready to pay in excess of $600 million for the company. The final handshake was over a much more reasonable sum of $563.2 million ...
Rumor: Disney eyeing Playdom acquisition
TechCrunch and VentureBeat both have sources claiming Disney is ready to purchase social gaming developer Playdom for over $600 million. There are currently obscene amounts of money being invested in the social gaming arena; just last year EA purchased Playfish, another big player in the space, for ...
