PSN Deal & EA Buys PopCap - IGN Daily Fix

Drew Olanoff · Subscribe · Top Commenter · San Francisco, California · 103 subscribers
BOOM! goes the PopCap.

Doug Mehus · Top Commenter · Personal Banker at HSBC Bank Canada
Anyone ever notice that Leena Rao seems to be TC's "beat reporter" of sorts, repackaging company press releases into news stories and rarely following up leads and doing "exclusives"?

Take this story for instance: the story was originally broken by the enterprising TC gumshoe (does anyone still use that word anyway) Jason Kincaid. Now that the official story has broken with press release issued, Leena Rao comes in and steals Mr. Kincaid's thunder. It doesn't seem fair to Jason. :(

Cheers,
Doug

Nicholas Black · Subscribe · Top Commenter
Dear EA.. please don't F$%ck up popcap like you did westwood studios.. Yeah I said it.. Red Alert 2 was your Starcraft but some of your Suit loving.. lets move the original studio from Vegas to Los angeles really screwed that franchise up. :)
/end rant

Ron Lencioni · Renton, Washington
This is Big News! Hope they let PopCap doing what it does!

Sergey Tiraspolsky · Subscribe
It's EA, of coarse they won't.

Dony Ang · EA
I knew it.

George Gaspari · Subscribe · Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Coming soon: Plants vs Zombies 2012 Tournament, Simon Cowell's Bejeweled 2012 "what the hell are you doing" edition, PvZ 2k13 Gold, PvZ 2k14....

Jonathan Ehrlich · Subscribe
Leena - Great story. One thought: not sure what you are seeing with the data so far, but I find it a lot harder to share stories on the current design vs previous. I miss being able to share right from the headline area. The share dropdown and the floating ajax nav just don't do it for me. Barely visible and too much work. But, could just be me. Anyway, nice piece. Thanks!

Obed Betancourt Jr. · Subscribe · Top Commenter · InterAmerican Recinto Metropolitano
It's been like a day man. Let it settle.

Jonathan Ehrlich · Subscribe
yes, that's true and the data will drive the decisions anyway. But no harm in sharing early feedback.

Dave Park · Subscribe · Publisher at Prefixmag
Yeah I thought EA was already doing very well with mobile. At the Apple App store they often have the most games in the top 25 of any publisher. This acquisition really puts them at the top of mobile publishers now. Bejeweled 2 and Plants and Zombies are permanent fixtures in the top 25 and I imagine the sequels will be even bigger assuming EA doesn't botch it up!

Sven Morawek · Nokia
...break into mobile gaming? as far as I know EA is doing fine in both revenue and market share in the mobile space. and, some titles like bejeweled have been published by EA, too. it is more about casual and social...

Christopher Kassulke · CEO at Www.handy-games.com GmbH
putting more pressure on others ;)

Adam Schwenk · Cal Poly
EA Mobile continues to dominate, acquiring companies they've had past success with. I produced the first bejeweled mobile for j2me handsets by the way.

Mike Reise
If you can't make, acquire.....

Adam Schwenk · Cal Poly
@Mike - They're just trying to stay competitive with Zynga trying to eat their lunch. Unfortunately it's a HUGE acquisition market right now...for me. LOL! I should have started up a mobile studio, ah well.

Brent Johnson · Subscribe · PHP Developer at Custom Register Solutions
I hope this doesn't mean all of PopCap's future games are going to just be lame regurgitations of previous games like all EA Sports games are now.

Sergey Tiraspolsky · Subscribe
Likely what will happen.

Joe Chard · CEO and Co-Founder at Nomuda
this is... wow. great point Ron - I hope EA doesn't mess up culture that has produced all of PopCap's awesome titles.

Jorge A. Gonzalez · Subscribe · San Diego, California
Someone, somewhere, just retired!

Matt Labour · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Dordrecht
Oh my... what an amount. Curious to see where this goes!

Obed Betancourt Jr. · Subscribe · Top Commenter · InterAmerican Recinto Metropolitano
$1.3 Bn? You have to be shitting me.

Abiel Abuy · Top Commenter
Is this a "If you can't beat them buy them" kind of thing?

Dale Williamson ᵀᴴᴱ ᴼᴿᴵᴳᴵᴻᴬᴸ · EA
"Help the gaming giant break into mobile and social gaming"... EA are already one of the top publishers on the Apple App Store, as well as having Playfish and Pogo which are casual social gaming sites... Rovio games are published by Chillingo, another EA company, so why would they need to compete with them? Bit more research needed before writing articles maybe?

Alvin Yip · Subscribe · Co-Founder & COO at Supreme Heaven Internet Team Corp.
It works like this: You see two Starbucks less than a block away from each other. Seems stupid at first, but would you image anyone wanting to open up their own coffee shop next to 2 Starbucks?

This is the exact same thing EA is doing. It's a cannibalistic approach to business. You make same or similar things that compete with each other and that in turns will muscle out any other competitors that may want a piece of the pie.

Eliana Rodríguez · Pontifical Xavierian University
Wow.

Julian-Courtney Michael Lukács · Subscribe
Yeah, it's "bubblicious."

1Life2Play
Wait! Does that mean I need to buy an online pass for Plants vs Zombies now? Will there be more DLC for Zuma at a discounted price on Origin? And, god-forbid, will Bejeweled now be available in a Special Limited-Time Collector's Edition which includes a 14K Ruby? All this is possible now that EA has there hands on PopCap!

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