KoTOR MMO confirmed by EA Boss!

In an interview with Portfolio.com, John Riccitiello of Electronic Arts, “may” have spilled the beans on the new Bioware MMO being published by EA as Knights of the Old Republic. The article quotes Riccitiello as saying:

We’ve got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development,” said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. “And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it.”

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online? “Yes,” he said.

[Source]

Tags: BioWare, Electronic Arts, KotOR MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic

EA invests 20 million US$ into Korean Studio

Gamasutra reports that Electronic Arts is going to invest at least 20 million US$ into a new Korea based development studio which will be focused on developing online games for the region. The staff will be mainly comprised of Korean Developers and Artists. The move is without doubt only the first step of EA’s expansion onto the Asian market. A market that proved difficult for American and European developers on more than one occasion because of the different mentality and different requirements on MMORPGs by Asian players compared to their western counterparts.

“… According to Digital Chosunilbo, an EA source said, “The size of the studio hasn’t been decided yet. First we plan to recruit dozens of workers to develop the NBA Street and Battlefield online games, but if we have more applicants than expected we may increase the size of the studio and develop another game.”

Related story.

Tags: Electronic Arts, Investment, Korea, Studio

EA BioWare-Pandemic Acquisition complete

BioWare and Pandemic are now officially part of the Evil Empire - also known as Electronic Arts. The acquisition is proceeding for some time now and we have been assured that the internal processes at BioWare will remain unchanged after the acquisition. However we’ve also witnessed many good studios to be renamed something like “EA <somewhere>” followed disbanding the studio after it’s work on the current title has completed. Let’s hope that BioWare will not share the same fate!

Two execs from each of BioWare and Pandemic have been named EA vice presidents and co-general managers of their respective studios. They are for BioWare Corp Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, and for Pandemic Studios Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick. Greg Borrud has been named a vice president of EA and made chief production officer for Pandemic.

Here’s the official press release:

Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that it has completed its acquisition of VG Holding Corp. and has officially welcomed BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios to the EA Games Label. The addition of these studios vaults EA into a competitive position in the RPG, action and adventure genres. The two studios have been recognized for creating some of the highest-quality games in the industry and will bring ten new franchises to EA, based on six wholly-owned IP.

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Tags: Acquisition, BioWare, Electronic Arts