EA buys Angry Birds publisher Chillingo by Zuzana Zelenakova

International video games developer and distributor Electronic Arts announced Wednesday the acquisition of Chillingo, the company that publishes popular mobile game Angry Birds. The game was developed by Finland-based Rovio, which did not figurate in the deal. "I'm kind of wondering what they bought," said Todd Mitchell, a Kaufman Bros analyst. "But in light of EA not getting the 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." The game was originally developed for Apple´s iPhone and over 6.5 million copies have been sold since its launch. As a player you control a ! flock of birds that are trying get back their eggs stolen by the evil pigs. The aim is to eliminate all the pigs. The game was created in 2009, and it hit top spot in most of the app stores as soon as the beginning of 2010. According to Reuters, EA paid about $20 million for Chillingo. "The acquisition combines Chillingo's expertise in cultivating the ideas of independent developers with EA's global reach in mobile publishing," EA said in a statement. "Chillingo is widely recognized for publishing highly original and successful games from the developer community. EA is committed to preserving Chillingo's independence enabling them to manage and cultivate their great network of relationships to deliver the optimal gaming experience for consumers." Games published by Chillingo include "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," "Minigore," "iDracula," “Cash Cow“ and others. Gaming companies become more and more interested in social gaming, as they recognized huge financial! potential. In July, Disney bought social gaming company Playd! om for m ore than $560 million. In August, Google acquired SocialDeck. Last year, EA itself bought social games maker Playfish for about $400 million.

related story (sgx18462): http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101020/tc_nm/us_ea...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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