As much as the hardcore community would like to wish it all away, there is a huge market for casual games. Social networking sites, particularly Facebook, have made simplistic games appealing to millions of people for whom even the Wii seems extreme. Classics like Scrabble, Uno, and even Rubik's Cube attract users already familar with the source material; while newer games like Mafia Wars, Farmville, and Restaurant City bring in huge numbers with little fanfare or marketing. Wall Street can't help but notice the audiences that these games are attracting, and today there's word that EA has acquired developer Playfish to the tune of $250 million.

Playfish brings an impressive portfolio of games to EA, including  Pet Society, Country Story, Word Challenge the aforementioned Restaurant City. EA is also getting a user base that in just the past few months increased from 35 million to approximately 60 million. Playfish was expected to rake in $75 million in 2009 on the strength of its casual collection.

In the hardcore gaming community, this kind of merger is always viewed with suspicion and mistrust, as the community tends to believe that larger corporations tend to suck the life and creativity out of a small developer. However I'm not convinced that casual gamers, especially the Facebook crowd, will care much about the difference. I can't see anyone organizing a boycott against Farmville in protest. It should also be interesting to see what kinds of games Playfish brings out with such a huge amount of money behind them.

[Source]