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EA acquires Phenomic

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Aug 22, 2006 2:03 pm PT

[UPDATE] Purchase of SpellForce maker now official; developer will focus on making real-time strategy games for PCs and consoles.

With its mix of Diablo-style dungeon crawling and real-time strategy elements, the PC game SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars raised a few eyebrows upon its early May release, even with the build to the Electronic Entertainment Expo dominating the news those days. Apparently among the eyebrows raised were those of Electronic Arts, as German daily paper Die Welt is reporting that the American publishing giant has acquired the game's developer, the Ingelheim, Germany-based Phenomic.

In an online story dated August 23, Die Welt reports that the publisher will keep the studio management in place, and that it will continue to operate in Ingelheim under the new name EA Phenomic. According to the story, EA won't say how much it paid for the developer, but that it would have no material impact on its earnings. It also reports that Phenomic announced multiple new games but gives no details on those.

Phenomic would only be the most recent studio to join the EA fold. Since last year, the publisher has since acquired mobile-game publisher Jamdat, Outlaw Golf series developer Hypnotix, and Warhammer Online studio Mythic, which was then renamed Mythic EA.

An EA representative said that the publisher had made no announcement to that effect. Phenomic is currently working on SpellForce 2: Dragon Storm, an expansion to Shadow Wars.

[UPDATE] EA has confirmed the acquisition of Phenomic today at Leipzig. Phenomic will focus on making online real-time strategy games for PCs and consoles. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

54 Comments

  • HaRiZ420

    Posted Jan 28, 2008 2:38 am PT

    EA in some ways is good and in more ways bad.

  • Cobra_nVidia

    Posted Aug 13, 2007 6:09 pm PT

    Please, please don't screw this up EA.

  • recobo

    Posted Jan 19, 2007 6:20 pm PT

    anyone knows if this expansion will be out anyway???
    i hope it does, so we can say goodbye to spellforce with a new expansion at least =/
    i really like games, but i found the big franchises to be really desaponting lately (i think only the capcom franchises escaped this fate)...
    however we can only hope that new studios will pop up with nice original games everytime EA decides to destroy the smaller ones xD

  • Pompous_Fool

    Posted Oct 16, 2006 7:30 am PT

    it seems that no sooner do i find a good game is it snatched away by the great 'micosoft' of gaming, dammit

  • versado

    Posted Oct 3, 2006 4:01 am PT

    Well, I guess this means the Spellforce series is dead, unless Jowood finds somebody else to develop it from now on.

  • MythicAvenger

    Posted Sep 29, 2006 6:38 am PT

    Oh no... I liked that game...

  • reliantk81

    Posted Aug 25, 2006 8:46 pm PT

    Great, expect spellforce 3 to be rushed out and followed by 15 patches like all of EA's other games

  • KiLLer_ba

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 10:13 pm PT

    Damn EA keeps increasing each year.

  • _Sam_

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 8:15 pm PT

    I should buy some EA stock

  • Valas_Azuviir

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 9:48 am PT

    There is one upside to this actually. No more Starforce on Phenomic games, their old publisher Aspyr had this annoying tendency to use that.. whatever you want to call it... to "protect" the software. It was even included in the demo's of the games.

  • MSE369

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 5:42 am PT

    omg EA damn it!

  • Shtinky

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 5:34 am PT

    Officially boycotting all EA products from now on (except spore, damn you EA!!!).

  • ElectrolightSH

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 5:28 am PT

    EA sucks balls. Die EA!

  • muscrat_01

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 4:20 am PT

    Oh Noes!!

  • mendigovirtual

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 3:03 am PT

    EA adquired Phenomic?ooh,no!! EA destroyed everything touch!!

  • GFofgaming

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 1:36 am PT

    EA eates, and grows. IF Microsoft bought EA, than its all over for all the console industry.

  • West-Coast-G

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 1:24 am PT

    What will they buy next?

  • samhellbringer

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 12:57 am PT

    goddang EA. Eventually, they'll rule the world.

  • s0l0123

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 12:41 am PT

    First EA ruin Command & Conquer, now they destroy SpellForce.

  • VolcanoMan001

    Posted Aug 23, 2006 12:31 am PT

    ***News FLASH***

    EA buys the moon

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