EA buys Playfish in online gaming move

by Andrew McCormick, revolutionmagazine.com 09-Nov-09, 15:23

LONDON - It turns out that spending all that time playing games on Facebook is worth something after all; at least to EA. The games giant today splashed out up to $400 million on Playfish, the company behind many of the games that have taken off virally on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

While EA is renowned for creating games for consoles and PCs, it is also the leading games publisher on mobile, including the iPhone.

Now it has bought Playfish, producer of games including Country Story, Pet Society and Restaurant City. The deal is worth an initial $275m but could rise to $400m through equity and performance targets.

The acquisition offers EA a new audience of millions worldwide. Playfish claims to attract 60m unique users a month and records over one billion 'game plays' a month.

It also proves that predictions of an upsurge in online gaming are starting to ring true.

EA said it will host Playfish in EAi, the company's digital business, which also houses EA Mobile.

"Social gaming, with its emphasis on friends and community is seeing tremendous growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our participation in this space," said Barry Cottle, senior vice-president abd general manager of EA Interactive.