Electronic Arts is steadily making headway into the mobile market, as evidenced by its most recent acquisition
According to Forbes, the video game giant just bought the mobile game studio Playdemic for a cool $1.4 billion; and in cash too, no less. Playdemic, which is under the Warner Bros. Games umbrella, is the developer of the popular mobile game "Golf Clash," which had considerable success with roughly 80 million downloads since its release.
This move comes after Electronic Arts also snagged another studio back in April. That one was Glu Mobile, which they acquired for $2.4 billion, as reported by TechCrunch. With their purchase of Playdemic, EA now has four new startups recently added to their portfolio, alongside Codemasters and Metalhead Software.
As reported on Variety, AT&T remarked that the acquisition by Electronic Arts will be quite instrumental in helping their company pay down a portion of their current debt, especially ahead of the imminent merger between Warner Media and Discovery, a deal which is expected to be finalized mid-2022.
Playdemic has been in the industry since 2010 and will be a great addition to EA's mobile game studio roster. The industry giant has been making big moves into mobile games lately, alongside their more major acquisitions targeting the console and PC market (Codemasters is known for "Formula One" and "DiRT").
But despite this, Electronic Arts stock is still not paying off dividends. Investors aren't really looking towards EA right now, though this could change within the foreseeable future.
Electronic Arts and its Foray into Mobile
EA knows that mobile gaming is more or less the future with handheld devices such as smartphones getting even more powerful (not to mention full-sized consoles being hard to come by for the average consumer).
They made this apparent by announcing that one of their biggest franchises, "Battlefield," will be getting a mobile version alongside the launch of "Battlefield 2042" for mainline systems later this year. But to make sure that it won't compete with what they release on the PS5/Series X and PC, the mobile "Battlefield" game is designed to be a completely standalone title.
Clearly, Electronic Arts recognize the massive business potential of mobile gaming, despite "Golf Clash" and other very popular titles actually being free-to-play. But there's the catch: some games on iOS and Android could be free to download, but they rely heavily on microtransactions and other pay-to-win schemes to make money. And since EA has a reputation for doing the same thing to their big-budget releases, they'd fit right in.
And it's not just EA, too. Sony is also planning to push major PlayStation franchises into the mobile gaming market if a rumor concerning a "head of mobile" job opening in the PlayStation Studios HQ in California is to be believed. Microsoft and Xbox are in on this mobile revolution, too, though their approach is more into streaming games into handheld devices instead of releasing actual ones on the platform.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
