EA waives 50 per cent condition on DICE share purchase

A bid by Electronic Arts to acquire Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE ran aground late last year, when a group of shareholders said that they would not sell to the American giant as they didn't believe it would be advantageous to the company.

The publisher at the time planned to buy shares in the company only if a 50 per cent threshold could be met - guaranteeing that DICE would come under EA's control - but this requirement has now been waived.

EA now intends to buy up all shares tendered in the offer, regardless of whether it meets the 50 per cent threshold or not, with the acceptance period for the deal expiring this Thursday, January 20th.

Within Electronic Arts, it's widely expected that the deal will go through regardless of the problems to date, and the two companies are already working more closely than a publisher and third party developer might traditionally be expected to - with work on the single-player element of Battlefield: Modern Combat, for example, being carried out at EA's UK Studio rather than at DICE.