TechCrunch names a few possible buyers in its report on the buyout, specifically Electronic Arts, Facebook game giant Zynga and China’s Tencent. That last name, if you’re not familiar with it, boasts an astounding $US383.41 billion market cap, making a purchase of PopCap seem like an easy thing to squeeze into the budget.
That said, EA’s not afraid to spend and spend big. It snapped up BioWare and Pandemic in 2007 for $US860 billion and purchased casual games maker Playfish last year in a deal somewhere between $US300 million and $US400 million.
PopCap Games To Be Acquired For $US1 Billion+ [TechCrunch]
Braaains
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 8:58 AMBioware and Pandemic fetched $860 billion? Amazing what a difference a single letter can make :P
Jordaan
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 9:11 AM$860 Billion, eh?
Steve0410
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 9:11 PMI wouldn’t have ever noticed this until you mentioned it. Now I had a good Dr Evil chuckle.
Cameron
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 10:07 AMMy bet’s on Valve.
Braaains
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 10:54 AMSurprised no mention of Activision or MS. Activision have plenty of cash, and like money a lot. MS also have deep pockets and PopCap’s games are the kind of thing that could be a huge boost for Windows phones and tablets as well as XBLA.
N0NEoftheAB0VE
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 11:38 AMI was curious so I went to find out – Pop Cap’s REVENUE last year was $100 million, and that’s their best result yet (up 25% on the previous year) so whoever is buying them is paying 10 times turnover, that’s a pretty optimistic play if you ask me.
@ Braaains – I reckon most of PopCap’s games are already on XBLA, though with M$ paying a similar amount for Skype it probably is them.
Braaains
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 11:52 AMWell yeah, but most of their games are currently everywhere, including iPhone, PSN, etc. I guess what I meant was that they could have exclusivity on future PopCap games. That’d be a big plus in the casual-gaming dominated phone/tablet markets.
Reoh
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 2:13 PMMy bet is Apple.
You know they want a bigger share of the gaming pie!
Dark Moogle
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 8:01 PMThe funny thing is, Apple are in a position to make such a move. They literally have piles of money sitting in Apple HQ for rainy day purchases like this :p
Steve0410
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 9:12 PMThat money goes into keeping their teams of highly trained lawyers on company payroll. That.. and using company helicopters to dry their executives’ home tennis courts.
Steve0410
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 9:14 PMDoubt it. Apple doesn’t develop games, or publish them, or have any intention of doing either of those.
On the gaming front, they just want to tighten their hold on the Games Center which, as gaming platforms go, has completely flatlined since IOS4.
Achenar
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 7:20 PMplease don’t be zynga
please don’t be zynga
please, please, don’t be zynga
Will
Friday, June 24, 2011 at 12:38 AMOh God that would be the WORST possible thing to happen. Fucking hell.
Stephen Whatman
Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 11:43 PMI have to say, I totally thought the same thing immediately when I read the header.
I pray it’s not.