Electronic Arts to slash 1,500 jobs and buy Playfish

Kevin Kennedy submits:It used to be that everyone wanted to be like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).

How do you make a video game that no one seems to want anymore? Game developer Double Fine faced that conundrum at the end of 2011. The company wanted to make an old-school PC adventure game, the type that had made company founder Tim Schafer a game design legend in the 1990s with titles like Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. But the genre’s market had seemingly dried up in favor of more visceral experiences like first-person shooters.

How do you make a video game that no one seems to want anymore? Game developer Double Fine faced that conundrum at the end of 2011. The company wanted to make an old-school PC adventure game, the type that had made company founder Tim Schafer a game design legend in the 1990s with titles like Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. But the genre’s market had seemingly dried up in favor of more visceral experiences like first-person shooters.

Electronic Arts, looking to jump into the exploding market for games on social networks, this morning said it has agreed to buy Playfish in a deal valued at $400 million.

Electronic Arts said it plans to buy the publisher of 'Angry Birds,' one of the most popular games on Apple's iPhone, pushing the second largest U.S. video game publisher deeper into the hot mobile games market

By Trefis: Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) is an international developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of games for video game consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and the Internet. Many of EA’s most successful games are sports related under its EA Sports label such as FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL, NBA Live, Tiger Woods, etc.

Zacks.com submits: Video game developer and publisher, Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) is scheduled to release its fourth quarter 2011 results after the market closes today.