Topic: EA Acquires PopCap Games for $750 Million

[Xessive]

EA Acquires PopCap Games for $750 Million

PopCap was previously rumored to be investigating the possibility of an IPO for late this year, but EA apparently made them a juicier offer. PopCap hopes that EA’s scale and deep pockets will help them get their games in front of more people. EA is gaining additional mobile gaming expertise as that sector continues to explode.

[Pugnate]

hahahaha Jeff Green escaped EA and went to PopCap with unmasked dislike for his former employers. Now he is somehow back to being an EA employee.

[Xessive]

hahahaha Jeff Green escaped EA and went to PopCap with unmasked dislike for his former employers. Now he is somehow back to being an EA employee.

Haha EA is like a giant, dark cloud of doom that devours every shelter he runs into!

[shock]

Haha EA is like a giant, dark cloud of doom that devours every shelter he runs into!

Haha.  I thought you were going to say they are a giant, dark cloud of doom that is devouring the PC industry.   

[Xessive]

Haha.  I thought you were going to say they are a giant, dark cloud of doom that is devouring the PC industry.   

It's either them or Valve hehe

I was gonna go for a Borg assimilation joke but the topic is geeky enough as it is.

[Cobra951]

My condolences to casual gamers everywhere.

[Pugnate]

WTF is Borg Assimilation. No... I don't want to know.

[PyroMenace]

Have you not watched Star Trek Pug?

[Pugnate]

Yea I have quite a bit... I forgot about the Borgs.

[gpw11]

The smartest thing EA could do here would be to just keep a hands off approach. PopCap is rolling in profit margins, don't fuck with that.

[Xessive]

The smartest thing EA could do here would be to just keep a hands off approach. PopCap is rolling in profit margins, don't fuck with that.

That is the hope, as indicated in this follow-up article.

“We're not speaking a different language, because everyone's talking about games," PopCap founder John Vechey told Gamasutra. "They've got this amazing digital publishing... and we are going to get to so many more customers so much quicker, and better. We can get to our objectives a lot faster than we would have independently."

"PopCap needs to do what PopCap does," he added. "We're going to take advantage of their world-class digital publishing, so we can just focus on making great games... We're focused on making great games and getting them to everyone in the world. Late in the fall, we said, 'let's explore options without going public that might get us to our goals faster or better.'”

Unsurprisingly, EA also has something of a high opinion of its nearly one billion dollar bedfellow. Among other things, EAi executive VP and GM Barry Cottle called PopCap “the Pixar of the game industry” and spoke highly of its ability to create “killer IP.”

In other words, the two didn't rush into some ill-advised marriage because they were blinded by dollar signs. Initial indications, then, seem to suggest that EA won't be bulldozing PopCap's offices to replace them with a soulless sequel factory.