EA has been in the public eye for the last several weeks and not all for the reasons that they would like to be. They shut down the gaming studio that created the "Dead Space" games, Visceral Games, and there has been controversy over the loot boxes in the upcoming "Star Wars Battlefront II" game launching next week. It seems they want to stay in the news because EA has just bought developer Respawn for $455 million and completely own the "Titanfall" franchise now. A report by IGN confirms this news.
What's the deal?
So EA is paying $151 million up front for Respawn and $164 million "in long-term equity" over the next four years.
Basically, they aren't having to pay the full $455 million now but will end up paying it all in the future. It's also worth mentioning that there's a long-term consideration worth a maximum $140 million. Respawn's CEO, Vince Zampella, had this to say about the buyout, "We are excited to combine our strengths" and all games "currently in development are continuing as planned." He also mentioned that there were no layoffs which is a good thing considering that stuff like this usually involves a few.
This deal comes a few weeks after EA shut down Visceral Games and people are linking the two and are not happy. Visceral was working on a single-player Star Wars game and it's all over the place as to what the condition of the game was.
EA apparently wasn't happy that the game was going to be a "story-based, linear adventure" in the same vein as an "Uncharted" game. Amy Hennig was working on the game and she used to work at Naughty Dog so it would make sense for it to have an "Uncharted" feel to it. Game journalists and fans alike took to Twitter after this happened and having a game like that was something they wanted.
More 'Titanfall'
"Titanfall 2" was one of the best reviewed FPS(First Person Shooter) last year, so it's no surprise that more games are coming. They made all the DLC for T2 free and they came out with a decent amount of it post-launch. Earlier this year, Vince Zampella said that Respawn is "heavily invested" in the franchise, so that can only mean more games.
They added a really solid single-player campaign to the second game and having a spinoff game focusing on characters from that game wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities moving forward. Having a full-blown "Titanfall 3" might be a ways off since it was two years in-between the other games. EA seems to be interested in a "Destiny" type formula so they could do that with the franchise. "Call of Duty WWII" took the "Destiny" formula, having a tower like "hub" for it's multiplayer and having other games copy that could be a thing.
