Casual mobile gaming maker Popcap has been scooped up by EA Games in a deal worth over one billion US dollars.
The image above is a rather comical note sent from the people at Popcap to their new owners EA Games, designed in the style of one of their most popular games, Plants Vs Zombies
Popcap are responsible for some of the biggest and most popular games on mobile platforms like the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. Games such as Plants Vs Zomies, Bejeweled and Peggle are just some of their best-selling games, helping Popcap to achieve over 1.5 billion downloads across all platforms.
EA Games have clearly been keeping a keen eye on Popcap’s successes as today they have announced a monumental takeover worth billions. It has been reported that EA have paid $650 million up front along with $100 million of stock to get their hands on Popcap, with a further $550 million expected to go Popcap’s way should their apps continue to be successful over the next year. The deal is expected to be finalised next month.
“As some of you may have heard, we recently announced that PopCap Games is being acquired by Electronic Arts, a small mom-and-pop boutique software publisher,” wrote PopCap. “We’re not changing our focus from creating awesome casual games everyone can enjoy,” the statement continues.
Popcap are excited about the prospect, mostly because EA’s game market dominance will skyrocket their already massively popular games to new heights. “Now, instead of getting a couple hundred million in the bank for us to spend, we get world-class publishing. I think for us it accelerates what we were going to do by many years. We’re going to be seven years faster to achieving world gameplay domination” said Popcap’s co-founder John Vechey.
It is becoming very clear that EA Games are sitting up and taking notice of the booming mobile gaming market – firstly they acquired social gaming company Playfish in 2009 and now Popcap. With over 15 billion apps downloaded on iPhone and iPod Touch in just 3 years of the App Store, can you blame them?
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Via: SAI