EA4 billion dollars to buy social networking site Game maker Playfish

Beijing time November 10 morning news, according to foreign media reports, EA said in Monday, the company will be a 400 million-dollar price acquisition game maker Playfish, the latter professional development of the game for the Facebook site.　　EA issued a statement saying that the company will first pay 300 million dollars to buy Playfish, if the latter can achieve a specific profit target, it will pay up to 100 million U.S. dollars. Analysts say the EA deal is a bet on social-networking games that will be the driving force behind the industry's growth. Sales of game consoles have fallen by 12% so far this year.　　By 2012, the total gaming market for social networking sites made up of rivals such as Playfish and Zynga and Playdom will amount to $2 billion trillion, up nearly twice times the current level, according to ThinkEquity, the US investment firm. "Social-networking games are focused on friends and communities and are now achieving huge growth, and it's time to invest to increase our participation in this area," EA said in a statement. "Playfish was founded in 2007 by Executive Christian Saigistrill (Kristian Segerstrale) and Sebastian De-Halliuks (Sebastien de Halleux), Glu Mobile, the second largest mobile game developer in the United States, The main business is to provide users with free games, the way they generate revenue through the "micro-trading" (microtransaction) to sell virtual products to users.　　The so-called micro-trade, refers to all types of enterprises on the internet to sell low-cost online goods and services business. Playfish is a privately owned company headquartered in London and San Francisco, supported by investment company Accel and Index Ventures. The company's most popular game is the pet powering (pet commune), which has more than 20 million of its monthly active users on the Facebook site. (Tangfeng)