>They didn't sell to EA to grow, but because BioWare was failing.
to be clear, they never sold to EA directly
Got into a PE ownership agreement with Pandemic Studios in 05 because they couldn't afford SW:TOR on their own, the co founder of the PE firm backing them went to EA, then EA purchased the holding corp.
They raised like $300 M between the studios because they couldn't afford the dev costs for SW:TOR (Somewhere around $200 M over 6 years per Gamespot) - and like everything PE touches, all they care about is money so they were more than happy to flip the holding corp to EA for a really nice ROI.
to be clear, they never sold to EA directly
Got into a PE ownership agreement with Pandemic Studios in 05 because they couldn't afford SW:TOR on their own, the co founder of the PE firm backing them went to EA, then EA purchased the holding corp.
They raised like $300 M between the studios because they couldn't afford the dev costs for SW:TOR (Somewhere around $200 M over 6 years per Gamespot) - and like everything PE touches, all they care about is money so they were more than happy to flip the holding corp to EA for a really nice ROI.