On the heels of the merger between Activision and Vivendi, an Electronic Arts representative has said that further acquisitions by the company aren’t out of the question.
Asked whether EA is considering further acquisitions following the massive deal that will see the creation of Activision Blizzard, EA Partners Director of Business Development Nick Button-Brown said, “It’s always possible. My primary aim is to find new IP and work with great developers whether we acquire them or not.”
“It would have to work for both parties,” he continued. “There are no hostile takeovers, it has to be right. Look at Bizarre being bought by Activision. Bizarre were independent for so many years but then they felt like they wanted a little bit of shelter and it fitted. If we’d have been working with Bizarre, that would have been an interesting deal.”
Industry heavyweights EA and Activision have both been on acquisition sprees lately: Activision swallowed up Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations in late September, while EA announced a blockbuster deal giving them control over BioWare and Pandemic two weeks later.
“There are so many opportunities out there,” Button-Brown said. “Look at Crytek, they make absolute bleeding-edge first-person shooters and they have been doing this for some time. It’s not something we specialize in. There’s some really good creativity outside of EA. Look at Harmonix, EA couldn’t have come up with Rock Band. It’s not something that anybody other than Harmonix could have done, they spent years building that expertise. It’s about finding expertise that we don’t have in-house.”
