EA in Chillingo Buyout

Electronic Arts, Inc. has purchased publisher Chillingo in a $20 million deal. Chillingo currently has a strong grip on the handheld gaming market and is most famous for its association with the iPhone phenomenon Angry Birds, which isn’t involved in the deal.
 

“I’m kind of wondering why they bought it,” Todd Mitchell, an analyst at Kaufman Bros, says. “In the light of EA not getting the Angry Birds IP, they’re buying the development platform to put their own IP on it in hopes of driving social networking and customers back to their own properties.”

 

 

 

When Angry Birds publisher, Rovio, were asked about the deal they were upfront and open, stating they’ve been self-publishing for some time now. “We only did the first iPad/iPhone integration with Chillingo and aside from that we've published everything ourselves,” said Rovio's North American development head Peter Vesterbacka, iterating, “we will not use Chillingo again.”

 

EA penned a similar deal back in November of last year, acquiring Playfish for a reported $400 million. This gave them a foothold in Facebook, where millions of gamers head for their daily fix. Madden NFL Superstars has already become a massive hit there, and they will be hoping for similar results in places such as the AppStore, to reach the widest audience possible.

 

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed