I hope this turns out ok, I love firemint and the work they do. I hope firemint doesnt change under the ownership of EA or go the way of westwood studios Electronic Arts has acquired independent mobile development studio Firemint Pty Ltd. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Firemint has created hits such as Flight Control and Real Racing for iPhone and iPad, whilst EA promises "an attractive future slate of games". Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. "The Firemint team is remarkable for its critical and commercial success," said Barry Cottle, Executive Vice President and General Manger of EA Interactive. "Having them as part of EAi will accelerate our position as worldwide leader in game development for mobile devices and online gaming platforms. "The added technical expertise of MPP, combined with the creative talent of Firemint and our EAi studio teams, fuels EA's leadership in delivering top selling, high quality games across mobile phones and smartphones, tablets and future digital interactive entertainment platforms." Link: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/299949/news/ea-buys-mobile-developer-firemint/ One thing I believe will happen is that I can see firemints games going to more platforms now
Wow. Wasn't Firemint doing the buying not to long ago. Well as long as they don't disrupt the quality of Firemint's games. Has chillingo changed much since EA acquired it? Which reminds me, I just saw a giant cut the rope ad in the Atlanta airport.
I'm gona be slightly optimistic on this one. They did buy chilling recently and they just let them be. Hopefully that will be the case here too. Also it's has the potential to give them acess to more resources. I'm concerned that firemint will have a ton of Iap in there games now. But on the other hand it would be awesome to have a nfs game from firemint wouldn't it?
Well real racing is already its own franchise of games on ios, and flight control is one of the most successful casuals on the platform. Let's hope that is enough incentive for EA to just give them more assets and promotion and leave them be in how they make their games. I hope Firemint games continue to be released under their name, and I certainly hope they won't be included in the redundant 99c sales.
Ea's been churning out pretty good titles on the ios. Most notable being dead space. So i guess this buyout aint such a bad thing. Plus ea loves to do their 0.99 sales. Whats not to love?
Firemint uses Game Center. EA does not. I hope Firemint gets EA on board with using Game Center and not the other way around.
Weren't EA getting close to legal trouble for monopolizing the gaming industry a few years back? Seems like they're up to their old tricks again, probably thinking if they do it on the handheld market no one will notice... let's see who they buy out next.
Well I don't think EA is going to ruin firemint but after their (firemint's) recent purchase of Infinite Interactive I didn't think this would happen. I've enjoyed plenty of firemint games before iOS but I was really happy for their success because they are one of the few companies that were not only competing with the big studios... but trouncing them. I dont' know a single person with a NFS game on their iphone but they all have Real Racing 2.
No that is the problem though. A lot of people bought real racing 1 and 2 at full rice because they knew Firemint hardly ever had sale. Firemint has a reputation as an excellent developer unwilling to yield to 99c sales every week. A quick look at appshopper shows that even their sale prices have never hit 99c with real racing 1 dropping to 1.99 only twice. But you are right though, with EA taking the platform more seriously, it is unlikely we shall see a drop in quality at any rate.
I think that was just about them monopolizing NFL rights for the Madden series. I believe Firemint actually worked on a few madden games for mobile phones if I'm not mistaken. Maybe that started the relationship?
Yeah, that news centralized entirely around the fact that it's basically impossible for anyone that isn't EA (or in bed with EA) to make a football game. Gameloft only managed to do it because of weird licensing loopholes for mobile platforms.
This was my thoughts exactly too. EA don't use GC, Beats me why, They probably lose 30% of sales because they don't have it. I don't buy a game now that does not have GC unless it 1) Promisses it in a later update or 2) Gets a 10 star review by either AppSpy or TA. As Bon Jovi once sang "Say It Isn't So, Say It Isn't So, Tell Me It's A Lie, Tell Me Everythings allright, Say It Isn't So...
I guess one thing to hope for out of this is Firemint will acquire more licenses from EA to implement more car manufacturers/models into the Real Racing series. That would be a dream come true to the best racing sim in Appstore past and present.
Story on front page now. And as mentioned previously I hope firemints games don't get caught up in the .99 sale craze. I always bought their games knowing quality and excellent production standards were guaranteed.
My reaction...Holy Cow!...E.A...Firemint???...(Feeling Sick Now)...Saddest Day in IOS Gaming- EVER. Firemint were just too good to be true. The Quality bar has dropped today Please prove me wrong EA give firemint more money and full autonomy 2m$ to produce RR3 and I might change my mind about this. Also does this mean RR is coming to console??? (Live Arcade/psn)
This could be the nail in the coffin for indie devs. The more companies they buy up who produce good product means they can control the App Store with 99c sales on every holiday you can think of. Once that happens EA will just produce the games that make money, which means sequel after sequel of the same games like they do on the console markets. When that happens all the interesting games will dry up or get pushed out of the charts. And this will be bad news for the gaming buying public.
