Electronic Arts (EA) has purchased indie developers BioWare and Pandemic Studios, from private equity firm Elevation Partners, for a reported $860 million.
Edmonton, Alberta-based BioWare, specializing in 'role-playing' games, made "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" for LucasArts and will be releasing Microsoft's "Mass Effect" in November.
Los Angeles-based Pandemic focuses on 'action-adventure' games, producing LucasArts' "Star Wars Battlefront" with a deal to distribute "Mercenaries 2" through EA.EA makes games based on "The Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter" and the "Sims".
Intending to expand BioWare and Pandemic into mobile, EA expects the two developers to generate more than $300 million in each of their next two fiscal years.
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