EA won't rule out further developer acquisitions

Following the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games, Electronic Arts has told GamesIndustry.biz that there is always a possibility of further acquisitions by the publishing giant.

EA Partners' Nick Button-Brown, speaking at GDC Lyon, also said that he believes the Activision Blizzard deal was necessary for Vivendi, although he doesn't expect to see any real effects of the merger for at least six months.

"Vivendi needed to make a change, they were just drifting. And Activision have been doing really well, Blizzard have been doing really well so it's definitely an interesting combination," he said.

"It's very interesting, I don't think we're going to know exactly how it's going to go until it settles down for six months," he added.

Asked whether EA is eyeing developers for potential acquisitions, Button-Brown, who is director of business development for EA Partners said: "It's always possible. My primary aim is to find new IP and work with great developers whether we acquire them or not.

"It would have to work for both parties. There are no hostile takeovers, it has to be right," he said. "Look at Bizarre being bought by Activision. Bizarre were independent for so many years but then they felt like they wanted a little bit of shelter and it fitted. If we'd have been working with Bizarre, that would have been an interesting deal."

EA currently works with a number of independent developers that have provided some of the company's most recent success stories — Rock Band from Harmonix, Crytek's PC shooter Crysis and Valve's Half-Life collection The Orange Box.

For EA Partners, the challenge is finding quality independent studios that can provide titles where the publisher doesn't already have major strengths.

"There're so many opportunities out there. Look at Crytek, they make absolute bleeding-edge first-person shooters and they have been doing this for some time. It's not something that we specialise in.

"There's some really good creativity outside of EA. Look at Harmonix, EA couldn't have come up with Rock Band. It's not something that anybody other than Harmonix could have done, they spent years building that expertise. It's about finding expertise that we don't have in-house," he said.