After shareholders rejected their original offer, Electronic Arts announced it had acquired a majority shareholding in development studio Digital Illusions. Digital Illusions is the developer that brought the popular online war game Battlefield 1942 to the desktop.

Late last year, Electronic Arts made an offer to buy Digital Illusions, but a group of shareholders representing a significant percentage rejected the offer, claiming that the deal was not in the best interest of the development house. However, as the offer closed on January 20th, EA managed to acquire 32 percent of outstanding capital from shareholders, and acquired an additional 8.9 percent on the open market. Combined with the 18.9 percent that EA acquired in December of 2003, the publisher now controls nearly 60 percent of the total stock of Digital Illusions, giving it enough control to add it and its franchises to EA's already impressive line-up of development houses.

What can this mean for Macintosh users? Electronic Arts has made generous overtures to Macintosh gamers in the recent past, bringing many of their popular PC and console titles to the Macintosh via third-party developers like Aspyr. Bringing Digital Illusions under their umbrella gives Electronic Arts access to their franchises, and in turn gives the Macintosh masses a better chance of seeing titles like Battlefield: Vietnam make it to their platform of choice.

Head over to GamesIndustry.biz to read the full article.

GamesIndustry.biz - Digital Illusions shareholders accept EA offer

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