July 28^th, 2004 (12:00am) - Electronic Arts is one step closer to taking over the video game world and saturating it with mediocre software. As of today EA has purchased Criterion Software Group, the team responsible for the popular Burnout racing series and the highly anticipated Black. Additionally EA is now the rightful owner of the RenderWare middleware suite and will be collecting licensing fees from every company that decides to use it in the future (including RenderWare4, the next-gen version of the product).

"This is a great fit," said EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst. "Criterion offers us studio talent and a proven management team, globally recognized intellectual property and technology infrastructure that will accelerate our readiness on the next generation of consoles."

A great fit for EA’s wallet, perhaps, but gamers everywhere are cringing at the thought of EA buying another popular developer. Time will tell whether or not Burnout and Black suffer the same fate as EA’s other accumulated properties, however for now we can only cross our fingers and pray that they stop buying them.