It’s been a little more than a month since we found out that Take-Two was in the process of buying out Dirt developer Codemasters. What initially seemed like almost a done deal slowly turned into a bidding war of the studio’s value, something that Codemasters more than likely wasn’t a fan of. However, in the past 24 hours, everything changed as fellow video game giant EA gatecrashed the entire deal by offering to buy out Codemasters for a substantially higher amount. Intrigued, Codemasters formally offered an EA deal for the purchase, $1.2 billion. EA has officially announced that they have accepted this offer and will acquire the studio in the deal, making EA the new leading company in the video game market place for the racing game genre.

EA and Codies “have a shared ambition to lead the video game racing category”

EA will have Formula One, Dirt, Grid and Project Cars in its IP stable, alongside Need for Speed, Real Racing and Burnouthttps://t.co/bYgR4G5SsT

— GamesIndustry (@GIBiz) December 14, 2020

In the press release, both EA and Codemasters show great enthusiasm for the deal, with the latter stating that they “have a shared ambition to lead the video game racing category.” EA CEO Andrew Wilson also offered a positive look on this buyout: “Our industry is growing, the racing category is growing, and together we will be positioned to lead in a new era of racing entertainment.” The acquisition is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2021, with the updated price of $7.98 per stock per share for Codemasters on the stock market.

Once the deal is done, EA will have gained a plethora of new racing gaming IP’s from Codemasters. This includes the popular Dirt franchise, Formula One, Grid, and Project Cars. EA themselves already owns a number of racing game series such as Need for Speed, Burnout, and Real Racing. Considering their already impressive library of major titles and franchises, EA has essentially expanded upon this greatly. As we already stated, this also gives them almost all of the biggest racing genre titles on the market. The only other real competitors in this aspect are Sony and Microsoft, with their Gran Turismo and Forza series respectively.