They were one of the few game studios with games that I could always expect to just work. No worries about weird DRM conflicts, having to be online, losing the CD or whatever having problems after computer upgrades. I could buy the games at the store on impulse with no worries, rather than having to decide if the game looked fun enough to bother spending time researching whether or not it would screw with my system or crash horribly or whatever else.
And now EA owns them...
At this rate, in Plants vs. Zombies XVIII, you will probably be able to connect to people playing Madden 2040 and have them invade your garden as football zombies. Or maybe they'll have merged with more companies by then and you'll have to grow your plants in Farmville first.
Why not take the money and leave to form a new studio? After all the key resource in any game development company are the people, not the IP or existing software..
Most acquisitions have golden handcuff clauses where the shares given in the acquisition vest over time, no? So if they leave early, they don't get all their money. Although maybe the upfront earnout is enough for them to not care.
