EA set to buy Popcap for $750 Million.

News has just broken that EA are lining up to acquire Plants Vs Zombies developer Popcap for $750 million. The move is one of the biggest takeovers in gaming history and will see E.A. acquire a ready-made access point into the casual games market. Popcap are the market leaders in the sector and will allow E.A. to take control of franchises such as Peggle, Plants Vs Zombies and Bejewelled. The takeover will be paid for with six-hundred and fifty million dollars of cash as well as one-hundred million dollars worth of stock. A takeover of Popcap had been rumoured in the past few weeks ,with many industry analysts predicting that Facebook game giant Zynga were ready to make a move.

John Ricatello, C.E.O. of E.A. , said that “E.A. and Popcap are a compelling combination. Popcap’s great studio talent and powerful IP add to E.A’s momentum and accelerate our drive towards a $1 Billion digital business”. This is also the strongest signal yet that E.A. are taking aim at Valve’s online retail service, Steam; the publishing giant has recently become embroiled in a number of controversies regarding their games availability on that service. They have also been busy at work rolling out Origin, an E.A. specific digital game service.

E.A. had signalled an increased focus on the casual market in recent times but this move has essentially come out of nowhere. The amount of capital involved is also absolutely massive; though it is smaller than the one-billion dollar price tag that had been hinted at. Very interesting times ahead for both companies and the relationship that E.A. has with Valve and Steam. Omar Little said it best when he said “you come at the king, you best not miss”, a hard sentiment to argue with given the stakes.