EA to Buy Euphoria Engine (Backbreaker)

If you look back in the archives, I hinted at Backbreaker positioning itself not for the consumers but for a huge publisher either to buy the real-time physics, animation, software or for a huge publisher to buy the company. With a summer of slow Backbreaker news, it looks like there might be a reason.

Gameplay is reporting that there might be an announcement of EA buying the Euphoria engine at the Leipzig Games Convention. Read the article.

Before you take that as Madden 10 using a real-time physics engine, it could mean something totally different.

1) They could be using the engine in their non-sports games.
2) They want to buy the software/company becuase more games are using the engine.
3) They don’t want another company to produce a football game.

I actually think it’s a blend of 1 and 2. There’s potential for EA Games (not EA Sports) to put this engine it games like Battlefield, Skate, or The Sims.

As for the sports gamer, if this report is true, could imply that EA Sports will use a truly next-gen animation engine in their sports games. This would be moving from EA’s bread and butter of motion capture animation. This is the upside. The downside is that Backbreaker will never see the light of day. Backbreaker could have been nothing more than tech demo to achieve exactly this. Either way the odds are not looking good for the football genre to get another game anytime soon.