EA agrees to acquire Codemasters for £1 billion

Codemaster’s senior management team will remain within the company during their transition to EA ownership, with EA expecting to close the deal in March 2021. 

EA has claimed that they are in a position to enable further growth for Codemasters and their innovative racing franchises, which include the F1 series, the DiRT franchise, GRID, and Project Cars. Add in EA’s Need for Speed and Burnout series’, and both companies will create the gaming industry’s largest publisher of racing games. 

At this time, it is unlikely that Take-Two will increase their offer to outbid EA and acquire Codemasters. That said, it remains a possibility. Either way, Codemasters will soon be under new ownership, placing the British publisher under the sway of US corporations.  

With EA’s reach and marketing prowess, Codemasters has an opportunity to increase their playerbase. With Codemasters’ engineering talents and development expertise, EA has an opportunity to improve their future racing titles, be it new Need for Speed games or new entries in the Burnout franchise. That said, some gamers fear that EA will try to push micro-transactions into Codemasters’ racing franchises.