EA Acquires Criterion

Officials from Electronic Arts have announced that they have purchased British development studio Criterion, from current owners Canon Europe. The publisher had already signed up to publish Burnout 3 this September, but the acquisition may have more to do with the developer’s RenderWare middleware platform – which will apparently be incorporated into the company’s existing technology tools. Financial terms of the deal were not revealed but Electronic Arts now owns all of the developer’s intellectual properties, including Burnout, Black and RenderWare. The publisher is current insisting that RenderWare – including the next-generation RenderWare 4 – will continue to be licensed to third parties, but many will be concerned that this arrangement may be curtailed at some point in the future. Source: Electronic Arts