EA Buys Warner Bros.’ Playdemic for $1.4 Billion

Electronic Arts has acquired mobile game studio Playdemic from Warner Bros. Games and AT&T’s WarnerMedia for $1.4 billion in cash. 

“This is the next step building on our strategy to expand our sports portfolio and accelerate our growth in mobile to reach more players around the world,” said Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA. 

Playdemic is the studio behind the mobile hit “Golf Clash,” which has more than 80 million downloads globally across iOS and Android since its 2017 release. 

“Golf Clash” has generated more than $225 million in revenue to date. Last month, the title brought in $6 million worldwide. 

The acquisition of Playdemic adds to an EA mobile network that has 100 million monthly active players and includes more than 15 top live-service games across a bevy of genres. 

EA is aggressively strengthening its position in the $138.4 billion video game market.

• Completed its $1.2 billion acquisition of British racing game developer Codemasters in February. 
• Generated $1.62 billion in revenue from its Ultimate Team offerings in FY2021, according to the company’s latest 10-K document filing. 
• Completed its $2.1 billion purchase of developer and publisher Glu Mobile in April.

Despite expanding its offerings, EA’s spending spree led to a fiscal Q4 2021 that fell short of expectations. 

The “Madden” and “FIFA” publisher generated $1.34 billion in revenue in Q4 compared to $1.38 billion for the same period a year before. 

Its full-year revenue was stagnant at $5.6 billion — the same as fiscal year 2020.