Former Bioware/Pandemic boss buys his old company back

The gaming community is aghast at the news that videogame behemoth Electronic Arts is snapping up scrappy independent developers Bioware and Pandemic. Here are some representative comments:

“They’re going to destroy Bioware just like they did Westwood and Looking Glass. Fuck EA.” — Azerael on Joystiq

“I hate EA with all the passion now. Why do they insist on turning other companies into their fire hydrant just a shame.” — Frogman666 on GameSpot

“Noooooooooooooooooooooo!” — Otheradam on Kotaku

But the mood is quite different at the companies involved. I spoke this morning to my anonymous source at Pandemic, whom we will call “Mister X.”

Mister X points out that EA’s current CEO, John Riccitiello, was the Bioware/Pandemic CEO until recently, and was responsible for the Bioware/Pandemic merger in the first place. “This is a progression of what we started two years ago with Elevation [Partners],” the equity firm owned by Bono that made the merger happen.

“It’s a very good thing for the company. Everyone [at Pandemic] is adjusting, but hopeful about it. The big thing to remember… EA is trying to change their company. To do so they changed CEOs for the first time in years. Their new CEO was our CEO nine months ago.

“He’s taking the same thinking [from Elevation] and applying it to all of EA.”

So perhaps Bioware/Pandemic is taking over EA, and not the other way around.

The merger is expected to go through in January.