Top game maker buys Jamdat

The world’s largest video game maker, Electronic Arts, announced late today it is buying Jamdat Mobile, one of the most successful distributors of mobile gaming titles.

The $680 million cash deal not only portends the cross platform integration of the two developers wireless assets, it also signals that the larger electronic gaming industry is getting serious about the mobile phone. EA said it would issue 50 game titles in the first 12 months after it completes its acquisition of Jamdat.

“This is an important strategic acquisition for Electronic Arts,” EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst said in a statement. “Together we intend to build a leading global position in the rapidly growing business of providing games on mobile phones. We look forward to the Jamdat team joining EA.”

EA brings to the table a franchise of enormously popular titles, including its EA Sports series, while Jamdat has built up an entirely mobile portfolio of original and licensed games--including titles like Tetris, Tony Hawk’s Underground, Bejeweled and Jamdat Bowling. EA has actually been licensing some of its sports titles to Jamdat, but recently it has started to create its own titles specifically for mobile. The acquisition will not only cement its relationship with Jamdat, it will create numerous synergies between the wireless and console/PC development sides of the business, said Mike Yuen, director of gaming for Qualcomm Internet Services, which works with both companies in developing their titles for BREW.

With Jamdat under its wing, Yuen said, EA can now cross-develop titles, coordinating the programming of the console/PC and mobile versions of game from the project’s inception as opposed to developing a mobile title as an afterthought or simply licensing the rights of a game from a mobile developer. That in turn could create many kinds of cross-platform features, such as the ability to unlock levels or skills in the console version of a game through gameplay on the mobile deck, Yuen said. It also opens the potential for truly platform independent games--longer, more immersive games could be switched back and forth between the TV or PC to the mobile phone. At least initially, though, the deal gives EA enormous leverage in the mobile gaming sector, immediately bolstering its portfolio of mobile titles from two to hundreds.

“Now that EA has actually acquired Jamdat it really validates what the game space is all about,” Yuen said. “EA has always been the 800-pound gorilla in the console gaming space. In one fell swoop, they’re now the dominant player in the mobile space.”