EA to buy PopCap Games for $1.3B

By Molly McHugh July 12, 2011

Electronic Arts (EA) announced today that it will acquire PopCap Games in a deal that may reach as much as a total of $1.3 billion . Last month, PopCap was rumored to have a mystery buyer that was offering somewhere around $1 billion. Given EA’s recent forays into social gaming, the deal doesn’t come as a huge surprise.

PopCap is behind popular games Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle, Zuma, and Bejeweled. ‘We picked EA because they have recast their culture around making great digital games,” CEO David Roberts said in a statement today. “By working with EA, we’ll scale our games and services to deliver more social, mobile, casual fun to an even bigger, global audience.”

The rise of social gaming has been good to PopCap, which integrates with Facebook, RenRen, Google, as well as Android and iOS devices. And EA has been keeping tabs on the industry: The developer has been traditionally affiliated with console and PC gaming up until recently, when it’s made several acquisitions to establish itself in the social gaming market. EA acquired both Playfish and Angry Birds publisher Chillingo recently, as well as signed a five year deal with Facebook in late 2010.

Adding PopCap Games to this list is another big step for EA’s social gaming division. It’s becoming more and more of a serious competitor in the social and casual gaming market, likely with intentions of challenging Zynga, which continues to dominate. According to EA’s investor statements, PopCap will also help its presence with gamers in Asia, as well as via mobile platforms.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Before coming to Digital Trends, Molly worked as a freelance writer, occasional photographer, and general technical lackey…

Gaming

Best PS5 SSD deals: Add more storage to your PS5 from $120

A 2TB WD Black

When the PlayStation 5 was originally released, it had the option to expand its internal memory, which was quite small at the time at a little under 900GBs. Of course, the issue is that there weren't any SSDs that worked on the new standard the PS5 was using, so even if you wanted to upgrade, you couldn't. Luckily, since then, there have been a lot of great SSDs for the PS5 that have been released, and upgrading its storage is pretty easy and can be done by pretty much anybody, provided they have a screwdriver. So, whether you picked up a PS5 from one of the PS5 deals or already have a PS5 and want to upgrade, be sure to check out the SSDs that will work great for your PS5 below.
Our favorite PS5 SSD deal

It wasn't that long ago that you'd have to pay well over $100 to get an SSD for your PS5, and often, it'd be slower than the pricier alternatives. These days, you can buy a Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD with heatsink for just $120 from Best Buy, thereby saving $45 off the regular price of $165. The SSD offers speedy performance while also having its own nickel-coated high-end controller to help deliver effective thermal control. It means it won't overheat and performance won't be compromised. Being a PCIe Gen 4 SSD, you get twice the data transfer speed of PCIe Gen 3 which is useful. Offering maximum read speeds of 7,000 megabytes per second, it's a good upgrade to go alongside your existing hard drive with 1TB offering plenty of extra space at a shrewd price.

Gaming

The Sims 5: release date speculation, trailers, gameplay, and more

sims 4 for rent expansion pack shared living the 6

It's time to brush up on your Simlish if it's rusty because the long-awaited The Sims 5, aka Project Rene, is officially on the way. This has been the longest gap between main entries since the series began, and while we did get tons of expansions for The Sims 4 to hold us over, plus the change to it becoming free to play, we're more than ready for a new entry. Each time a new game in the franchise comes out, die-hard fans always need to have a bit of skepticism about what features will be there -- both new and returning.

We can't answer all your questions yet, but here's everything we know about The Sims 5.
Release date speculation

Gaming

VR headset deals: Meta Quest 2 and VIVE XR

htc vive vs pro headphones

While VR may not be as big as was predicted back in the early 2000s when the original Oculus Go was released, there is still a considerable market these days, and some great VR games like Half-Life: Alyx that you can have fun with. Of course, VR headsets remain expensive, and while options like the Meta Quest don't necessarily require a high-end gaming PC, they can still be a bit pricey for those who just want to put a foot in the hobby. Luckily, there are some good deals you can take advantage of, even on some of the best VR headsets, so be sure to check out all your options below.
Meta Quest 2 -- $199, was $200

Even though the Meta Quest 3 came out quite recently, the Meta Quest 2 is still a pretty powerful contender, especially since it has a wider library and app support than the Quest 3 currently has. Even more so, the Quest 2 is a lot cheaper than the Quest 3, and with the latest permanent discount down to just $200, that's a whole $300 or so difference from the Quest 3. Of course, the Quest 3 does have more advanced AR and slightly better performance with software and Wi-Fi, but that may not be worth the extra cost for some. Either way, be sure to check out the breakdown between Quest 2 and Quest 3 to get a better sense of what you should pick up.