EA Acquires Criterion & Renderware

Along with the rights to Burnout and the studio's mythical "Black" project (first screen inside).

An agreement was today announced between EA and Guildford, UK-based Criterion, the studio responsible for many hit games including the Burnout series, as well as the owner of the Renderware middleware game development platform, which EA will also acquire.

Say hello to Black, another FPS to get very excited about...

The deal also sees EA acquire the rights to Burnout series, strengthening its previously announced publishing deal for Burnout 3: Takedown, as well as a project currently in development at the studio known as Black - a(nother) visually outstanding FPS for PS2.

"This is a great fit," said EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst. "Criterion offers us studio talent and a proven management team, globally recognized intellectual property and technology infrastructure that will accelerate our readiness on the next generation of consoles."

EA places a strategic priority on creating games with a set of tools and libraries that are shared among its studios. RenderWare and RenderWare4 - currently under development for next generation consoles - will be combined with EA's technology to create a common framework for development. EA also plans to continue licensing the middleware technology to other developers.

Burnout 3: Takedown will be a 'smash hot' for EA.

"Combining EA's tools and technology libraries with the existing RenderWare technologies will create a superior platform for game development," said Criterion CEO David Lau-Kee. "This system will provide the most powerful common technological framework for creating great games."

On the matter of next-gen, he continued, "Our work on RenderWare4, combined with EA's next generation efforts, will also boost development efforts on the next generation of consoles which are expected to debut over the next two years."

And Fiona Sperry, Head of Criterion Games, revealed, "Within EA, we can now secure our future as one of the world's leading development studios."

Criterion will be managed from EA's UK Studio in nearby Chertsey, Surrey; the RenderWare business will remain in the UK at a separate location. RenderWare will be managed apart from EA's local studios.

The acquisition is expected to close in 30-45 days, subject to regulatory clearances.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com