Rumor: EA on the prowl, looking to buy Epic Games

by Dustin Burg { Oct 3rd 2008 at 2:30PM }

Rumor word coming from Game Guru is that Electronic Arts is in the market, not only for a developer, but also for a gaming engine. Believe it or not, EA is said to be looking to purchase Epic Games and the Unreal Engine. Gasp!

Game Guru claims that EA is looking to gobble up developers of established franchises and quality lineups, which Epic Games fits the bill with Gears of War and Unreal Tournament as well as the added bonus of the Unreal Engine. Seeing that EA's attempt at purchasing Take-Two ended in failure, it wouldn't be entirely out of the realm of possibility that EA would ponder the acquisition of a company who's engine (Unreal Engine 3) powers a good chunk of the industry's titles. Just think, the future could see EA owning exclusive rights to Unreal Engine 4 and somehow involved in GoW ... maybe? ... meh!

[Via Game Stooge]

Tags: ea, epic, epic-games, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, rumor

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

hrolf @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:37PM

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo!!

seriously WTF, does anyone else think of them as a monopoly yet? seems like their gonna try to pwn everything they can till its ll cookie cutter crap.

LiqwidZero @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:46PM

It's more anti-trust in the works rather than a monopolization.

vanhelsingh @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:27PM

please let them make Gears 3 before EA takes over.

Urza @ Oct 4th 2008 9:27AM

Relax, Tim Sweeney loves what he does too much to sell Epic to EA.

Mazrael @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:40PM

EA destroys games!

Bill Gates will need to get there first if it gets close to happening - and still leave them they're independance..

Mass Effect 2 has less appeal now EA own Bioware.. I'm even a little interested in Dead Space.. but that EA logo on the box would surely be a sign of crapness..

Cole Mullenbach @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:49PM

Dead space got a 91% in the first review... EA has been making decent games as of late, as long as they arent movie based. Im more worried about the quality of other company's games if this were to happen

Wii60 @ Oct 3rd 2008 4:34PM

Cole,
EA will make a great original game once every 3 years or so. That 91% will get a sequel that earns an 80%. It will still sell a ton of copies. Everything, and I do mean everything, EA is involved with somehow devolves into mediocrity. Furthermore, whenever they get the chance, they will buy another company to either kill competition (NFL 2k) or get a good franchise and cut the budget on the next iteration for a quick buck.

Then there's the DRM schemes....

LiqwidZero @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:43PM

It won't happen.

Cole Mullenbach @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:45PM

This would be one of the worst things that could happen to video games. The unreal engine powers a good percent of games that are on the market now. EA would then have a monopoly on games now. I could see them not selling the rights to the engine to Activision or Ubisoft because they are afraid of competition

L4MB @ Oct 4th 2008 10:11AM

i dunno about that. if you buy a commodity, the whole idea behind it is to sell it to make a profit. and that's true everywhere. i could see them raising the price on using the engine, but to cut out certain publishers? i would doubt it.
but maybe this isn't such a bad thing? maybe somebody builds a new engine...and it's better than what EA currently owns...and then everybody uses that engine...and EA is left holding that multimillion dollar bag and nobody is looking to buy what's in it.

Carbonize @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:45PM

Makes you wonder how many engines EA wishes to own. I mean they already own the CoD engine and the Frostbite engine used in Battlefield: Bad Company.

Jez @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:34PM

Activision would own the engine to Call of Duty, seeing as they publish it?

Carbonize @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:37PM

Yeah god knows why I said EA. Need to get some sleep I think.

mike @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:51PM

this rumor has to be true, EA would love nothing more than to steal a Huge developer and make gears 3 multi plat, this will be a done deal soon enough.

SadisticHam @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:55PM

As far as i know Microsoft own the rights.

{@} @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:17PM

Last I checked, they never did, SadisticHam.

David Kendall @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:46PM

If MS don't own the rights to the game, i'm sure they have in a contract to publish gears of war exclusively on the xbox 360 and or pc for 3 titles (gears 1, 2 and 3 for silly people). Personally, I think MS have the same deal with Bioware for Mass Effect. I'm sure MS's lawyers have thought of everything

Zeus.:God @ Oct 3rd 2008 11:20PM

Microsoft DOES own the rights to Gears of War. After all, Microsoft is the one who urged Epic Games to make them an EXCLUSIVE game- Gears of War.

Steven M @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:57PM

noooooooooooooooooo.......if ea actually tries this shit I pray microsoft buys epic to keep the games from becoming yearly gears of war games with only minor graphical and gameplay improvements

jarhead906 @ Oct 3rd 2008 10:45PM

Isn't that what Gears of War 2 is going to be?

I don't really mean that, but the only real improvement in the game's quality that I can see becoming a reality is the inclusion of an ACTUAL PLOT, even a good one in comparison to other titles.

lionp696 @ Oct 3rd 2008 7:28PM

Isn't that already happening with gears of war 2

Arnon @ Oct 4th 2008 4:18PM

Gears 2's graphical improvements are huge actually.. they did a side-by-side comparison and it looked really well done. Then again, you cant exactly improve on Gears' graphics.. they were amazing back then and still are.

Paul B @ Oct 5th 2008 1:12AM

Jarhead,
Did you not see the Unreal Engine Demo at E3.
All of those updates are in Gears 3 along with the tweaking and gameplay changes to make it more of a take cover and Lancer from distance game.

/not trying to be confrontational, just pointing that out

sarge @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:08PM

I call shenanigans on this one. Does anyone else think its funny that suddenly Gameguru has all these rumors that no one else has. I think they are just making stuff up that seems somewhat believeable just to get traffic on their site.

Jonman @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:10PM

Actually, I've got a reasonable amount of respect for EA these days. Sure, they used to be a creativity-crushing behemoth as recently as a couple of years ago, but of late, they've got their name attached to respectable, high-class games.

Look at the studios attached to the EA Games label: BioWare, DICE, Pandemic, Black Box, Maxis, Phenomic, Criterion, Mythic. These are not crappy devs putting out licenced rubbish - these are top tier studios putting out good games, like Mass Effect, Burnout Paradise, Mirror's Edge, Battlefield, The Sims, Warhammer Online - these are market-leading, high quality games.

And then there's EA Sports - I'm not a fan of the sports games, but from what I hear, their recent output has been making waves.

New management in the form of Riccitello (sp?) seems to have brought more focus on quality, and it's been a while since I've played a crappy game with an EA logo on it.

Bubbameister33 @ Oct 3rd 2008 8:06PM

You work for EA.

Jonman @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:12PM

Errm, if it's using their licensed engine, then it's not competition - it earns them money, so they would want to encourage people to use their engine, as it makes them more money.

{@} @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:15PM

Not to stir things up... but, I'm almost positive Epic still owns the Gears property. The main reason EA bought Criterion was for renderware, so seeing as how UE3 is being used in just about every game these days, EA could be seeing $'s. Add Gears in the mix, and this could be huge.

Mr Khan @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:17PM

I could see this happening if Epic hadn't really "broken out" into the console space like it has.

With Gears, Epic's got a free pass for corporate freedom at least until the trilogy is finished.

Todd H. @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:27PM

M'soft owns the publishing rights to GoW, fact. Do you really think they'd let a flagship title like this go multi-platform? Stop the needless speculation.

Todd H. @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:28PM

M'soft owns the publishing rights to GoW, fact. Do you really think
they'd let a flagship title like this go multi-platform? Stop the
needless speculation.

Dadidito @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:30PM

EA stay out of anything epic. For that matter any games in general. ugggh....

iFester @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:34PM

So, more texture-popping Mass Effect owned EA games?

Sorry, couldn't help myself. :D

ZEBRA NINER @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:34PM

Go EA!!!! w00t!

Kizzle @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:42PM

Fuck you EA, stay away from Epic.

Ugh. If someone HAS to absorb them, let it be MS. But I'd just prefer they stay on their own. Or hell, maybe they could merge with Take-Two and form a supergroup comprised of people that told EA to shove it.

Topsu @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:42PM

GoW 2 to PS3!

DMOB xSHROOMZx @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:45PM

I am getting sick and tired of EA. Theyre ruining so many games right now, just so they can eat up all tha sales. EA sports went crap, lets try to buy 2K... our games arent selling that well, lets get GTA. Oh crap, they wont take our bid, ok, lets try to buy EPIC so people HAVE to use us!

They need to own up tha fact that they are garbage now, and stop trying to buy all of tha competition so they can make sales......

F (_) C K YOU EA

Anubis @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:57PM

I wish EA would go the "F." away! I like Peter Moore; I have lot of respect for the man, but Jesus. Really?!?!?! Can't EA focus on creating new IP other than Skate, instead of buying development houses? Please stop it. Please. That’s why I hated when they bough Criterion Games. They try to turn Burnout it into Need for Speed and vice versa. …..And what did we get Burnout Paradise without a real Crash Mode, and NFS: Pro Street just totally sucks. Question EA and EA Black Box, Where the “F.” is the open world environment that has been the staple for a Need for Speed game? Huh? EA please just go away.

psychohog @ Oct 3rd 2008 3:58PM

Fuck EA.

x silence x @ Oct 3rd 2008 5:35PM

I don't trust a website with that many popups

azz0r @ Oct 3rd 2008 5:54PM

Here's an idea, sink money into new game ips and new studios instead of purchasing existing studios.

EA won't be happy until its destroyed the gaming industry.

nick @ Oct 3rd 2008 6:53PM

EA purchasing Epic would be a huge FAIL for the industry. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but after EA acquired Criterion, which made the RenderWare engine, they immediately ceased new sales of the engine. Only existing contracts to use the engine were allowed to do so. And what would have been RenderWare 4 was only used internal to EA.

I would be extremely concerned that EA could do the same thing with the Unreal Engine-- stop selling new licenses and only allow updates for use on EA products.

Like I said with Rockstar, I don't think an EA acquistion is in the best interest of Epic or the industry.

Now that I think about it, perhaps EA is looking to acquire engine developers. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Wonder if they try to hit up id Software next.

Adriaan @ Oct 3rd 2008 7:12PM

NO! NO NO NO NO NO!

mike @ Oct 3rd 2008 7:18PM

I'm going to make this very clear to my fellow 360 fan's, Microsoft DOES NOT OWN THE GEARS OF WAR FRANCHISE, they have a development deal for the FIRST 2 games for 360, After that EPIC could do whatever they want with it, This is a fact (google gears of war 3 on PS3 if you don't believe me theres an article with an EPIC employee talking about it) If EA buys Epic kiss the 360 exclusivity down the toilet