Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire VG Holding Corp. — the owner of both BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios. This acquisition gives EA a strong competitive position in key genres in interactive entertainment: action, adventure and role-playing games. The two studios have been recognized for creating some of the highest-quality games in the industry.

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EA will pay up to $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding Corp., which will be subject to time-based or performance-based vesting criteria. EA will also assume outstanding VG Holding Corp. stock options. In addition, EA has agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition.

Duh-amn, that’s a lot of cold hard cash.

Pandemic certainly has their share of memorable titles; Dark Reign 2, Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Destroy All Humans! were all worth my pimply investment. But BioWare has got be one of all-time favorite Western development houses, and knowing that’ll be taken under EA’s wing doesn’t leave me particularly jumping out of my socks in ecstasy (although I will admit the EA of today is far more favorable than the EA of yesteryear). As it is, EA has a pretty strong presence here in India - so this will only get more of BioWare’s work out in the open for those unfamiliar with their incredible lineage of role-playing games.

But don’t cry, children! At least now EA has a competent developer to handle the System Shock license.

(Source: GamesIndustry.biz)