San Francisco, Dec 14 (IANS): US-based video games firm Electronic Arts on Monday disclosed that it has reached an agreement to buy Codemasters in a deal worth $1.2 billion.

Back in November, Take-Two Interactive, the owner of 2K and Rockstar Games, announced that it had reached an agreement with the Codemasters' board. The deal valued the racing studio at a little under $1 billion.

"We believe there is a deeply compelling opportunity in bringing together Codemasters and Electronic Arts to create amazing and innovative new racing games for fans. Our industry is growing, the racing category is growing, and together we will be positioned to lead into a new era of racing entertainment," said Andrew Wilson, CEO EA.

Under the deal, EA would pay $7.98 for each share of Codemasters with an implied enterprise value of $1.2 billion. The deal is expected to be done in the first quarter of 2021.

"The Board of Codemasters firmly believes the company would benefit from EA's knowledge, resources and extensive global scale - both overall and specifically within the racing sector," Codemasters Chairman, Gerhard Florin, added.

Codemasters is best known in recent years as a publisher of racing games but has also been known in the past as publisher of the Overlord series, among others.

EA owns the 'Need for Speed' franchise so the Codemasters addition would give it further control over a huge share of the racing game market.