Om Malik of GigaOm looks at EA’s $400 million acquisition of social game maker Playfish. Malik sees the deal as putting a seal of approval on social games, where a traditional game publishing giant has now paid a premium price to bring a developer of such fare in-house. Playfish’s popular games such as Restaurant City and Pet Society attract tens of millions of players through social networks such as Facebook. The company makes revenues through micro-transactions of in-game items.
Malik breaks the deal down into winners and losers. He sees big money winners in Playfish’s management as well as investor Index Ventures, given the sweetness of EA’s deal. On the flip side, he says EA is the loser for paying that hefty price to get into online casual games, an area where the publisher has thus far been flailing. Malik also looks at how the consolidation could affect the other big player in social gaming, Zynga.
Read more at GigaOm.
