EA To Buy Chillingo For $20 Million
October 20, 2010
Early this morning All Things Digital's Kara Swisher reported on a rumor that EA was close to acquiring Chillingo, the high-profile iOS publisher responsible for Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. As it turns out, it wasn't a rumor at all. Reuters is now reporting that EA will indeed be acquiring Chillingo for $20 million in cash.
Although an EA spokesperson has confirmed the agreement, the $20 million price tag has yet to be confirmed.
"By acquiring Chillingo, EA Mobile is increasing its market leadership on the Apple Platform as well as reaffirming its position as the world's leading wireless entertainment publisher," EA's Holly Rockwood said in a statement. "This acquisition will combine Chillingo’s expertise in cultivating the ideas of independent developers with EA’s global mobile publishing reach."This is now the second high-profile iOS game publisher to be gobbled up just this month. On October 12th it was revealed that DeNA, a Japanese-based social gaming company, would be acquiring ngmoco for a cool $400 million. Hopefully EA will follow through with their promise to combine the two very different operations and not just feed off of the install base Chillingo has created. Only time will tell.
