November 3^rd, 2005 (1:56pm) - Elevation Partners, a private equity firm headed by former Electronic Arts president John Riccitiello, has crafted a $300 million deal that merges two of North America’s top videogame developers, Canada’s Bioware and U.S. game studio Pandemic. This will form a new operation consisting of the newly formed Bioware/Pandemic Studios with John Riccitiello acting as CEO, with the current heads of Bioware (Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka) and Pandemic (Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick) as senior executives.

Surprisingly, no jobs will be lost as a result of this merger. In fact, the firm’s studios in Edmonton (Canada), Los Angeles and Brisbane (Australia) will all remain operational. Additionally, the company’s staff of 400 will receive shares in Bioware/Pandemic.

Elevation Partners had previously been involved in a bidding war with SCi to acquire UK publisher Eidos Interactive, however, its efforts were unsuccessful. Fortunately, EP has no intention of turning Bioware/Pandemic into a publisher and will keep the company focused as a game developer and will continue to work with publishers such as THQ, LucasArts and Microsoft.

Bioware is known for its landmark RPGs, including Baldur’s Gate and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, while Pandemic Studios is known for moderately successful action games as Full Spectrum Warrior and the critically acclaimed Mercenaries.