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Despite announcing an imminent spate of scythe swinging through some 1,500 job positions (around 17 percent of its total workforce), heavyweight videogame publisher Electronic Arts has revealed the business-boosting acquisition of social games specialist Playfish.
EA, now officially playing with social fish. Image: Playfish.
EA has secured the London-based developer in a layered purchasing deal that equates to 275 million USD in cash, a further 25 million in equity retention, and also a potential $100 million USD based around meeting certain performance milestones through December 31 of 2011.
“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,” commented Barry Cottle, senior vice president and general manager of EA Interactive (EAi).
“EAi has been successfully leading the charge for EA, and with this addition of proven expertise from Playfish, their broad consumer base and strong game brands, we’re moving ahead aggressively in our plans to lead in the category of cross-platform social entertainment,” he added.
The acquisition of Playfish will enable EA to increase its presence in the social gaming sector, not least because the developer has some 150 million games installed and played worldwide on hugely popular social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, along with handsets such as the iPhone and mobile operating systems such as Android.
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