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General: Mythic Will Be Acquired by EA
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
The following press release appeared yesterday on the official EA webpage. The press release states that EA has acquired MMORPG company Mythic Entertainment, the makers of the popular Dark Age of Camelot, and the upcoming Warhammer Online. The story appears to be verified as the same release appears on Mythic's corporate site as well.
Back on April 3rd of this year, MMORPG.com published a statement from Mythic CEO Marc Jacobs stating that the rumored deal between Mythic and EA was not go forward. "We have no deal with EA. We are currently not talking to EA," said Jacobs.
Jacobs did not categorically deny that a merger might come to pass, saying only that he had recieved a number of differing and very lucrative offers to purchase the company, but that none of them had been a right fit.
Back in April, Jacobs left us with the following statement: "I will not now, not ever do a deal that puts the people at Mythic who made this company great at risk," he was careful to point out at the time, however, that the deal with EA (which didn't happen at that time) did not fall into that cetegory.
With that being said, we are told that with the exception of a name change (EA Mythic) and a few job-title changes at the top, that things are set to remain as they are with the Mythic team making MMORPGs in their officies in Virginia. We are yet to see how the backing of a video game giant like EA is going to effect Mythic's products, both current and future. Jacobs seems positive about the change, stating in the press release that, "EA's commitment to the online market as well as its focus on creating games of unsurpassed quality, scope and scale gives us opportunities and resources we could only dream about in the past.""
MMORPG.com will continue to follow this story as it develops.
|
Studio Recognized Worldwide for Top Development Talent, Critically Acclaimed Franchises and Ground-Breaking Online Experiences |
Electronic Arts today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Virginia-based Mythic Entertainment®. Upon completion of the acquisition, Mythic Entertainment will become EA Mythic, a wholly-owned studio dedicated to developing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Mythic is recognized worldwide for revolutionizing the online gaming space with the award-winning Dark Age of Camelot® and is currently developing Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning under license agreement with Games Workshop.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close during EA's second quarter of fiscal 2007. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Upon completion of the acquisition, Mark Jacobs, the President, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Mythic, will become Vice President, General Manager of EA Mythic. Rob Denton, the Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Mythic will assume the role of Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of EA Mythic. Mythic's 175-person development team will remain in Fairfax, Virginia.
"Mythic has always been a leading independent developer in the online space," says Mark Jacobs, CEO and co-founder of Mythic Entertainment. "EA's commitment to the online market as well as its focus on creating games of unsurpassed quality, scope and scale gives us opportunities and resources we could only dream about in the past."
"The addition of Mythic to the EA family reflects our deep commitment to the online gaming market worldwide. Mythic will bring one of the industry's most talented MMORPG teams to EA. Together, we will create games that will introduce MMO players to a whole new level of game play and excitement," said Paul Lee, President, EA Studios.
To visit Mythic's site, click here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Personally, I am rather offended that they would lie to us so blatantly. I somehow do not think EA just magically offered them this deal in the small amount of time since they reported there wasn't a deal going on between them.
Either way, prepare to see Mythic be pushed into unreasonable launch times, and release half completed content, because EA will force them to announce on dates long before completion. Hoorah! Anyone see another SOE emerging from EA?
I also heard a rumor on FunCom last week about deals... but that would never happen...
And, that about wraps it up for Mythic. Sad to see them sell out. But, I suppose it is to be expected. Nobody seems to want to take their own company to greatness anymore; they would rather sell out for the fast buck and the easy retirement.
In a year's time, DAoC will be junk. And certainly don't expect any quality out of the Warhammer product. If I was Warhammer, I would pull that license immediately and try to find another partner. I am sure that if they had wanted EA to do WAR, that is who they would have signed with in the first place.
R.I.P, Mythic, R.I.P
When has Mythic ever released completed content? Been there since the start, every expansion pack and patch goes off with trouble.
I hope, at least, EA will pump a little cash in to get DAoC cooking again, right now the clusters need new hardware in a bad way as well as some more programmers... oh, and how about a web content person that can actually create stuff? Geeze their site hasn't changed in 3 years and the xml code they have there hasn't be updated in years... kinda sad. I sure hope they fix it.
I see that the deal gets finalized in the 2nd quarter of 07... that's when Warhammer comes out. Coincidence? I think not. EA wants a shot at a game to compete with WoW.
Now, let's hope they don't screw that up.
Other than that I don't personally have any reason to dislike EA...
Bummer i was thinking of buying WAR too. I know how EA are with games and how they are with their communities in other games. They either nerf everything or just make stupid advances with their games that totally go against the grain to what their communities have requested, on boards or with petitions. Seems that every game they have acquired or made they have turned into sissy slap games with no balls. Good thing there are other games in the woodwork that i can choose to buy. What a total bummer this info is. Yes mythic sold out to E Gay games.
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When are you folks at MMORPG.com gonna join the modern age and allow foxfire. Look at the mess above after a single spell check......
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FoE Fist of the Empire
*shrug* the law states that he has to lie so he lied, can't blame someone for following the law.
That said this is VERY bad news, as WoW shows very clearly an MMO can be great at release but if you lose focus then it will go downhill pretty quickly which is really bad when you pay $15-$20 bucks per month for continued development, customer support etc.
WAR will be great out the door but between buying expansions, booster packs, unique items and whatever other stunts EA will pull to wring the last dime out of the customer the experience will not only damage WAR but also MMO's for a long time to come.
I wish the Mythic devs the best and I hope they have new jobs by the time WAR is out and it's time for them to be taught the EA culture of all crunch time and working 80 hours for 40 hours pay.
I very much hope the rumors about Funcom are untrue but considering what's happened lately it would be surprising if they aren't gobbled up by an evil empire too.
The lure of the dark side of the force is very hard to resist indeed...
Next time try actually posting an original gripe about DAOC.
By the way Fiscal '07 could actually mean December '06 depending upon when EA's new Fiscal year starts and ends and if if it Dec '06 you can guarantee that EA wont want to wait til 3rd/4th calendar quarter of '07 to release the game, my guess is they'd push for a summer '06 release.
You know.... the only thing I remember from EA and MMORPGs anymore is their "who cares" attitude they took with Earth and Beyond. Remember that?
""EA has made clear they will drop support for Earth and Beyond September this year. The E&B content team has been added to the Ultima X Online team, the server team will remain till close down (September 22, 2004).""
June that same year....
""June 30, 2004
Dear Ultima X: Odyssey community members,
As of today, development on Ultima X: Odyssey has ended. We feel that Ultima Online is where we need to focus our online efforts and most of my team will be moving to the UO expansion pack, the UO live team, and an unannounced Ultima Online project. Development on UO will be greatly enhanced as we consolidate our resources behind that franchise. ""
Goooooood luck with EA in the background Warhammer....
- ya I'm here
Although many people seem to hate EA (same way many people hate Nike, McDonalds, Pepsi etc) - it is probably good news for the average gamer and wider MMORPG community. Having a heavy hitter in the market will likely spawn some truly "BIG" games with all the eye candy, infrastructure and longevity that an EA can bring.
Im no EA fan boi (i play bf2 sometimes at they are still screwing that community over real hard) but...at least Mythic kinda know what they are doing and i am happier its them leading the EA adventure in MMORPG then EA trying to do it themselves from scratch.
6 million Wow subscribers at $12 a month - $800 million a year excluding costs and sales of boxed software and best of all ZERO piracy...i am surpised EA waited this long to get a slice of the lucrative pie.
I do not know what other MMO's EA is connected with? I do hope that they let Mythic run the show and just give them money to get Warhammer perfect. This may not be a bad thing since they are a huge company and they have the resources. Ok now I will stop dreaming and look at the dark side of this and see it going like SOE and SWG, I sure hope it does not end up like that I really want Warhammer to be great. Maybe with EA taking over Mythic we will see Imperator make a come back as well. We really need a good sci fi MMO and I think Imperator may be it with all the Rome/Roman hype.
PLEASE EA and MYTHIC DON'T SCREW THIS UP!
Mythic (and or it's 'relatives') have been around the MMO market since before many of the current crop of players were born. We'll just have to hope (and wait and see) that all that experience doesn't go flying out the window.
Frankly, I can't blame them. until now, they've done everything 'inhouse' - which is a HUGE proposition these days (Just look at the current 'estimates' for development of an MMO - ranging anywhere from 20 million to 60+ million) With the addition of big money EA - hopefully that eases at least the money pressure a little.
One can only hope the agreement is 'hand's off' giving Mythic financing in return for a slice of the pie. That's something we';; have to wait and see about though I guess.
Rob
Plain and simple, this can mean 2 things: If the Mythic team are still in charge of the project and EA only job is to pull out a big ass marketing campain along with funding the MMO division with extra cash, we could have a serious competitor to WoW.
Now, if it means that clueless, greedy ass corporate people of EA are going to call the shot on the development of War Hammer and force stupid deadlines to Mythic team, it will be nothing better then Earth & Behond, The sims online and all other MMO failure EA has pulled out so far.
What deserves to be done, deserves to be "well" done...
Grr...I won't buy EA trash again...scratch WAR off my list of to-buy.
Yup..haven't bought an EA product since UO:AOS release (if you can call it that) more like ****-up. Anyway, too bad for those looking for WAR to be good. EA will change all that.
MFers!!!!!! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo!
Okay I've calmed down now. This is just so bad. I though Mythic was pretty good as a company. Much better then EA and SOE in terms of how they handled their games and even their customer base. Now this. After what EA did to Earth and Beyond, UO2, Ultima X: Odyssey, letting Sims Online die and even Ultima Online (refusing to upgrade the game after all this time) I don't have any good feelings for what is going to happen to Dark Age of Camelot and WAR.
Now if EA keeps their hands off of Mythic and let them do their thing things should be okay. If they decide to approach Mythic the same way they did Origin and even Maxi I can only think negative thoughts.
[blockquote]"EA's commitment to the online market as well as its focus on creating games of unsurpassed quality, scope and scale gives us opportunities and resources we could only dream about in the past." [/blockquote]
If that had any ring of truth, UO wouldn't be the way it is today, UXO and it's dev team wouldn't have been screwed over the way it was I feel.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
Apparently the new deal was right for Mythic.
Welcome to capitalism.
IIRC, right after EA bought Westwood (E&B's Developer) they said there wouldn't be any major changes. Not long after that the old Westwood team was uprooted and relocated, content and customer support became horrid and, suprise, EA closed E&B.
DAoC players better start looking for a new game.
The lure of the dark side of the force is very hard to resist indeed...
Could you expand on what the Funcom rumors are? Who is looking to buy them?
-Cheggelund
I don't have a problem with the merger. If Mythic accepted it, I am sure it was a well thought out decision which would result in a win win. No reason to panic. EA, I am sure, has no interest in killing the goose that laid the golden egg. To what purpose? EA acquired Origin Systems years ago, and 8 years after release, UO is still a great game that is constantly tweaked and improved. Perhaps not to the liking of some subscribers but the bottom line is that UO is still going strong after 8 years, most of which have been under EA.
I don't see the reason for the panic attacks. Personally the pronostications of doom and comparison to SOE are offensive to me. There is NO WAY DAOC could EVER become anything like SOE. We are not dealing with inexperienced developers here. EA is a great game company in its own right very attuned to our MMORPG world. I think its a great merger and Warhammer will now have the backing of an industry giant to provide all the development resources needed for a state-of-the-art awesome game. My vision of Warhammer now is an online game with the excellence of DAOC and the graphics of Oblivion. Wow! I can't wait.!!!
From the start - and I was there at launch - DAoC was the least buggy and most complete of any MMO. Only WoW has had a smoother launch, and it already had a fiscal & programming powerhouse behind it. The bugs have always been minor, never gamestopping, and the expansions have only been "trouble" because fanbois don't like them.
EA is most likely going to ruin WAR, and DAoC is going to be sliced, diced & sent to the zapper... no, no, I'm going to wait & see, not jump off the handle...
farkin' EA