June 13^th, 2002 (12:00am) - Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS), the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company, today announced an agreement for the acquisition of Black Box Games, a 100-person game development studio in Vancouver, B.C. Under the agreement, Black Box Games will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Electronic Arts. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 1998, Black Box Games currently is developing the latest iteration to EA’s highly acclaimed Need For Speed racing franchise, Need For Speed™ Hot Pursuit 2. Additionally, the team has produced other popular sports video games including versions of EA’s NASCAR Thunder™ 2002, Midway Games Inc.’s NHL® Hitz 2002 and Sega Corporation’s NHL 2K and Soccer Slam.

“Black Box Games is a studio full of highly-talented and creative people,” said Paul Lee, Senior Vice President and COO of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios. They have an impressive track record for developing multiple titles across several platforms. This acquisition brings us a powerhouse team to work on future titles for the Sony PlayStation 2 console, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox system from Microsoft.”

“We have had a great relationship with EA as an outside developer for several years,” said Paul Tremblay, CEO of Black Box Games. “This next big step of becoming part of the world’s largest and most talented game development studio is an absolute thrill and certainly the biggest reward for producing high quality titles over the past four years.”