Mobile Gaming Consolidation Continues
Consolidation in the mobile gaming space has been going on for a while, with companies seeing size as their greatest competitive advantage. The bigger they are and the more games they can offer, the more likely a carrier to do business with them. Now, EA says it’s buying Jamdat for $680 million, creating a mobile gaming juggernaut. Jamdat’s the publisher of several of the most popular casual mobile games like Tetris and Bejeweled, while EA’s console titles like Madden NFL football and Tiger Woods Golf have also translated to mobile. Another interesting angle is that EA’s been a player in the casual games market on PC for quite some time, with Pogo.com. Pogo does offer some mobile games, but the Jamdat purchase could signal an intent to make a bigger move into the casual games market — where it competes with Digital Chocolate, the company of Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins.
