EA Acquires PopCap Games for $750 Million
EA Acquires PopCap Games for $750 Million
Posted 07/12/2011 at 3:06pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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It is official; Electronic Arts has purchased PopCap Games for $750 million in cash and stock. You might not know PopCap by name, but they are responsible for making some of the most addictive casual games of the last few years. Their titles include Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle, and Bejeweled.
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.
EA launched Origin in June, a direct-to-consumer digital storefront akin to Steam. We expect to see PopCap games available in that service soon. Hopefully the games PopCap puts out continue to be as compelling as they have been in the past. But now that the company is flush with cash, what about Plants vs. Zombies 2, guys?
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Holly Golightly
July 13, 2011 at 11:14am
Wow, that was totally out of left field. I did not see that one coming. Oookay, so what is going to happen with games like Plants Vs Zombies? Gosh, I hope they do not milk it like they did with Need For Speed. That would be tragic. Although Pop Cap could have saved themselves if they would have just released Plants Vs Zombies 2. 750 million is a generous offer, but at what cost? The cost of a great title never being the same. Man, when will these buyouts and hostle take overs end already? Next up, EA buys out Activision with a hostle take over. I guess that is a little too extreme, but still, it will eventually come up to that if they continue to buy out every competition. Hmm, I wonder who they would buy off next? Ubisoft? City Interactive? Spicey Horse? The mergers never end.
Gutter96
July 13, 2011 at 8:32am
NOW we can look forward to Plants V. Nazis or Modern Zombie Warfare 6!! :-/ Way to go EA....
ShockerX
July 12, 2011 at 11:45pm
I'll miss you, but I don't think you're great enough to have a grave beside Westwood Studios. Terrible, terrible mistake.
Darkside
July 12, 2011 at 11:41pm
I'm kind of with everyone else on this one: just because EA can buy out companies does not mean that EA will be able to continue to produce the quality games that everyone expects. A very good example of this is the acquisition of Westwood Studios and the C&C series. The C&C games produced by Westwood were fantastic. Under EA, the games were not as well done as they could have been. Of course, it might be different when dealing with the casual game market, but pardon me for having my reservations.
ShockerX
July 12, 2011 at 11:46pm
Amen, but I can say CnC Generals was decent, I played a ton on it.
Darkside
July 12, 2011 at 11:55pm
Generals was decent, but it got stale pretty quickly. At least with RA2 or YR, it was still fun to play the campaign a few times after the first playthrough and even quite a few custom matches.
Caboose
July 13, 2011 at 7:59am
RA2 & YR were 2 of the last really awesome C&C Games. C&C3 wasn't too bad, it at least kept the story going, had the traditional gameplay that everyone loved from C&C, good replayability and mod support. RA3 was OK. Built upon the cartoony, way out there of RA2. But C&C4 was the worst C&C game ever to be created! I think I may have 1hr of play time on my copy, and 3/4 of that was trying to play co-op with a friend of mine.
The previous games had cheesy acting, but it was still good, C&C4's acting was just horrible. Its such a sad way for the franchies to end. I was really hoping that there'd have been an epic conclusion at the end. NOD finally wiped away for good and Tiberium either got under control or eleminated, NOD taking over the world and crushing everything GDI and embracing Tiberium, creating a new breed of humans to rule the planet, or the Scrin destroying Earth.
Ghok
July 12, 2011 at 6:34pm
It'll take more than just EA to stop me buying Plants vs. Zombies 2, but maybe they'll screw it up so bad I won't even want it.
Neufeldt2002
July 12, 2011 at 4:55pm
Haven't bought anything with an EA badge since the original Crysis. They, like Activision just release buggy games that should have had more development time. Glad I got most of the Pop Cap games before EA takes control.
flo21
July 12, 2011 at 4:47pm
Well, was nice knowing you PopCap. On the other hand they could have been bought by Activision, and then they really would have died within the year.
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