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Electronic Arts could be on the verge of closing a deal to acquire casual game creator
PopCap for a sum exceeding $1 billion. The high price tag on the deal represents a big wager for EA — the cost is 13 percent of the company’s market cap. The move is viewed by some as a "hail mary" attempt by EA to break into social and mobile gaming, a territory that it has not successfully cracked.
This week, 2K Games and Gearbox Software debuted "Duke Nukem Forever" for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. For the game’s developers, it was a momentous occasion. Fans had been waiting 15 years in video game purgatory, they said, for the launch of the mythical Duke Nukem game. For some game reviewers though, the release was more of a dud than the alien ass-kicking event it was portrayed to be.
Nintendo confirmed the rumors that have been swirling for weeks that it is working on a next-generation Wii. The company released sparse details about the game console, other than it is set to be on store shelves in 2012 and will be unveiled at the video game industry conference, E3, held in Los Angeles this June.
The states of California, Texas, Washington, New York and Massachusetts currently have the highest number of video game jobs, according to the ESA’s "Video Games in the 21st Century" report. Collectively, these areas directly employ 22,279 workers and post nearly 71 percent of the industry’s total direct employment.
Succumbing to the primal pull of gameplay, millions of new consumers are joining the nearly ubiquitous adventure of exploring the pixelated worlds presented in video games, seeking personal recreation, relaxation, amusement, even escape — and the industry is feeling the profound effects of that stampede. Ginormous metamorphoses continue to roil the busy, merciless landscape of today’s $28 billion U.S. video game business.