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EA Acquires Glu Mobile for $2.1 Billion, One of the Biggest Gaming Acquisitions Ever
Electronic Arts will acquire mobile game studio Glu Mobile for a weighty $2.1 billion, the companies announced Monday, making it one of the most costly video game acquisitions in history.
Glu Mobile is, as the name implies, a mobile game development studio with a few heavy-hitting franchises to its name: Diner Dash, Disney Sorceror’s Arena, WWE Universe, TapSports Baseball ‘20, Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Deer Hunter, and others.
EA is demonstrating a clear interest in developing their mobile game business with the acquisition. Glu Mobile reports their game catalog has earned more than $1.32 billion in bookings over the past year. EA states that their reasoning for acquiring Glu Mobile includes growing their mobile games portfolio into sports, RPG, lifestyle, casual, and “midcore” games.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/22/the-5-biggest-takeaways-from-xboxs-bethesda-acquisition"]As part of the deal, Glu Mobile is getting access to EA’s global licensing and distribution capabilities. Glu Mobile’s experience in monetizing sports and casual games is also a point of interest for EA.
“Our acquisition of Glu combines amazing teams and deeply-engaging products to create a mobile games leader with proven expertise across many fast-growing genres,” said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts. “Mobile continues to grow as the biggest gaming platform in the world, and with the addition of Glu’s games and talent, we’re doubling the size of our mobile business. With a deep IP portfolio and an expanding global audience, we’ll deliver more exciting experiences for our players and drive further growth for Electronic Arts.”
The acquisition brings Glu Mobile’s 500 game developers (and approximately 800 total employees) under EA’s umbrella.
EA is on a recent tear with game studio acquisitions. The company defeated Take-Two Interactive to acquire DiRT developer Codemasters in January for $1.2 billion.While the acquisition is dwarfed by a few considerably larger grabs, it still stands as one of the most expensive of all time. According to Statista, Tencent acquired Clash Royale developer Supercell for $8.6 billion. Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media (parent company to Bethesda, id Software, Arkane, MachineGames, and Tango) in 2020 for $7.5 billion. Activision acquired Candy Crush developer King for $5.9 billion in 2016, while Microsoft acquired Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion for 2014.
EA’s acquisition of Glu Mobile places it above other business deals like Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR ($2 billion), Zynga’s acquisition of Peak ($1.8 billion), and Bandai’s acquisition of Namco.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/21/xboxbethesda-deal-what-it-means-for-ps5-ign-daily-fix"]EA previously purchased Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled developer Popcap games for $750 million in 2012. Adjusted for inflation, EA has spent roughly double that amount for Glu Mobile. Popcap’s acquisition eventually brought us Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 1 and 2, and Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.
The Glu Mobile acquisition is expected to close on June 30, 2021, subject to all necessary approvals.
[poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/easily acquired for IGN.GTA 5 and GTA Online Just Had Their Best Year Since Launch
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Report: Anthem Next’s Future Depends on EA’s Upcoming Internal Review
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X-Men: Viggo Mortensen Reveals Why He Turned Down Playing Wolverine
Actor Viggo Mortensen revealed that he turned down the role of the X-Men’s Wolverine thanks in part to his son Henry.
On an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via MovieWeb), Mortensen detailed how an early meeting with 20th Century Fox and director Bryan Singer colored his thoughts on potentially being locked into a superhero role for years to come. Besides his own personal misgivings, Mortensen’s young son Henry, a fan of the X-Men, noted how different Singer’s incarnation of the superhero group looked.
"The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over,” Mortensen said. “I was nervous about that. And also there were some things... I mean they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide. In the back of my mind, I was thinking he could learn something, too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes 'This is wrong, that's not how it is.'"
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/05/marvels-wandavision-just-introduced-the-mcus-strangest-ever-cameo-ign-news"]Singer eventually asked Henry if he was familiar with Wolverine, Mortensen said.
“And he goes 'yeah, but he doesn't look like this,' And all of a sudden the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties,” Mortensen said. “We walked out of there, and Henry asks if he will change the things he told him about, and I say I don't think so. I'm not going to do it anyway, because I'm not sure I want to be doing this for years, and then a couple of years later I'm doing three Lord Of The Rings [films] so who knows."
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=marvel-museum-collection-exclusive-preview&captions=true"]While three Lord of the Rings movies is quite the project, it ended up being far less of an ask than what Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman got over the course of seven (technically eight) X-Men movies, most of which focused on Wolverine as the central lead. It's well-known that Jackman wasn't the first choice to play Wolverine, but call it a happy accident, considering Jackman is easily the most lauded and popular part of the X-Men film franchise.
Mortensen even turned down a role in the Hobbit trilogy prior to that franchise’s filming way back in 2008. The actor is definitely the type to be careful with his role selection, typically appearing in only one to two movies per year. His most recent major appearance in 2019’s Green Book (alongside Mahershala Ali) earned him an Oscar Award nomination for best actor. He most recently made his directorial debut for 2020’s Falling, starring Mortensen as a gay man caring for his dementia-ridden homophobic father.
Now that Disney owns 20th Century Fox, the future of the X-Men franchise has been a popular question considering the MCU made it all the way to Avengers: Endgame with nary a mutant. You can read our thoughts on what WandaVision latest twists and turns might mean for the future of the MCU. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/strider for IGN.X-Men: Viggo Mortensen Reveals Why He Turned Down Playing Wolverine
Actor Viggo Mortensen revealed that he turned down the role of the X-Men’s Wolverine thanks in part to his son Henry.
On an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via MovieWeb), Mortensen detailed how an early meeting with 20th Century Fox and director Bryan Singer colored his thoughts on potentially being locked into a superhero role for years to come. Besides his own personal misgivings, Mortensen’s young son Henry, a fan of the X-Men, noted how different Singer’s incarnation of the superhero group looked.
"The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over,” Mortensen said. “I was nervous about that. And also there were some things... I mean they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide. In the back of my mind, I was thinking he could learn something, too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes 'This is wrong, that's not how it is.'"
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/05/marvels-wandavision-just-introduced-the-mcus-strangest-ever-cameo-ign-news"]Singer eventually asked Henry if he was familiar with Wolverine, Mortensen said.
“And he goes 'yeah, but he doesn't look like this,' And all of a sudden the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties,” Mortensen said. “We walked out of there, and Henry asks if he will change the things he told him about, and I say I don't think so. I'm not going to do it anyway, because I'm not sure I want to be doing this for years, and then a couple of years later I'm doing three Lord Of The Rings [films] so who knows."
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=marvel-museum-collection-exclusive-preview&captions=true"]While three Lord of the Rings movies is quite the project, it ended up being far less of an ask than what Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman got over the course of seven (technically eight) X-Men movies, most of which focused on Wolverine as the central lead. It's well-known that Jackman wasn't the first choice to play Wolverine, but call it a happy accident, considering Jackman is easily the most lauded and popular part of the X-Men film franchise.
Mortensen even turned down a role in the Hobbit trilogy prior to that franchise’s filming way back in 2008. The actor is definitely the type to be careful with his role selection, typically appearing in only one to two movies per year. His most recent major appearance in 2019’s Green Book (alongside Mahershala Ali) earned him an Oscar Award nomination for best actor. He most recently made his directorial debut for 2020’s Falling, starring Mortensen as a gay man caring for his dementia-ridden homophobic father.
Now that Disney owns 20th Century Fox, the future of the X-Men franchise has been a popular question considering the MCU made it all the way to Avengers: Endgame with nary a mutant. You can read our thoughts on what WandaVision latest twists and turns might mean for the future of the MCU. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/strider for IGN.
