Electronic Arts Confirms Mythic Acquisition For 2007

I don't reacall of any Electronic Arts acquisition leading to joy and peace among the gaming community, but I can surely name a few esteemed studios that were dead and burried before we even knew what happened, once EA took over. Hopefully, this won't turn out to be the case for Mythic Entertainment - EA's latest acquisition announced yesterday. The actual integration of the studio into the EA family won't happen immediately, but once it does (supposedly during EA's second quarter of fiscal 2007), the studio is to be renamed EA Mythic.

Having developed the Dark Age of Camelot series, dropping Imperator along the way, and now working on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, it's no surprise that EA Mythic will continue to be dedicated to developing MMORPGs - a genre in which Electronic Arts have yet to make a name for themselves. The first Mythic MMO to be released under the EA brand is expected to be Warhammer Online, towards the end of 2007.

No financial terms of the transaction were disclosed at this time. However it's interesting to note that, in a previous rumour dating back to February, the speculated amount offered by EA was around $30-50 million - which was quickly dismissed by Mythic's CEO, Mark Jacobs, with the following comment: "We have rejected lots of offers throughout the years, including one whose value was a heck of a lot more than that in the rumor". At that point, it was all a matter of how much EA was willing to spend, or for how long would Mythic keep on playing hard to get. I'm just wondering who craked first...

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)