Electronic Arts Allegedly To Buy PopCap Games [iPhone/Casual Game Developer Said To Be Gobbled Up By EA For $1 Billion, Ready For Annual Revisions Of Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies & Peggle?]

Posted on TFTS by Kevin Schram on Thursday, 23. June 2011 under: Computer/Console Gaming

PopCap, the great casual gaming company behind such hits as Peggle, Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies may be in the final stages of being acquired by a bigger company. Allegedly, that company looking to acquire PopCap would be none other than gaming publishing giant Electronic Arts. The asking price? A cool $1 billion.

Zynga, the other social gaming giant who is behind Mafia Wars and Farmville and all these little Facebook games, was said to be interested in the deal, but they allegedly thought that PopCap’s asking price of $1 billion was too expensive. PopCap is said to be making $100-$150 million per year in revenue.

Although you may be more familiar with EA for their “big” games like the sports titles, they actually have been fairly successful in pushing into social and causal gaming. They have their pogo.com service, as well as a number of iPhone/iPad games, and I think PopCap would be a good purchase for them.

When various blogs and media outlets contacted PopCap for comment, they said (naturally) they didn’t comment on such rumors. A few PopCap employees said on Twitter that the rumors of EA buying PopCap weren’t true – but let’s be frank here, not everybody in every company knows what’s going on at the upper echelon of their company.

Even if PopCap isn’t bought by Electronic Arts, the company is rumored to be looking into an IPO and becoming a publicly traded company.

What do you think about this? PopCap – a part of EA? Good news, or bad news? Will this affect your Plants vs. Zombies marathon sessions?

Crazy Gamer
As an investor of EA, if the rumors of spending $1B+ to acquire Popcap actually proves to be true, I would be terribly upset. I find this to be a last ditch effort for EA to come back from the ashes. They should invest it back into R&D, their employees and their stakeholders. $1B+ is a risky bet for a company of EA’s size. No room for error if this ever happens.
I believe Zynga may be in talks.