EA to Acquire Melbourne Mobile Developer Firemint

We are all we’ve got. Watch the full trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Pre-order Now!

We take Naughty Dog's latest graphical masterpiece for a gameplay spin to see if it handles as well as it looks and sounds. Click here for our full hands-on preview!

We Talk with Acti's Daniel Suarez!

Ahead of the Xbox One reveal, AusGamers had a chance to see Call of Duty: Ghosts up close and in person. We also spoke with CoD VP of product Daniel Suarez. Click here!

Injustice: Gods Among Us Reviewed!

We take NetherRealm's Injustice: Gods Among Us for the review spin and walk away very happy with what the MK creators have built here. Click for the review!

EA to Acquire Melbourne Mobile Developer Firemint

Post by Dan @ 10:01am 04/05/11 | 20 Comments

Electronic Arts have formally announced an agreement to acquire mobile game developer Firemint, the Melbourne-based team well known for their success on the iPhone and iPad platforms with the top-rated titles Flight Control and Real Racing

"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."

No mention was given as to how this deal will affect any upcoming games or current employees.

firemint ea electronic arts

Link

TicMan
Posted 10:07am 04/5/11

Man that's awesome. Congratulations to those guys from taking the simplest idea and turning it into a business bought up by one of the worlds biggest game houses. AGN should do an interview stat!

Link

Mosfxx
Posted 10:40am 04/5/11

Yeah good work to the team at Firemint, they make some great games.

Link

teq
Posted 10:58am 04/5/11

so Dan, why lock the SuperBoss thread?
he got in before you, seems kind of childish to promote your own entry rather than give him credit for the find

Link

Dazhel
Posted 11:06am 04/5/11

Props to Firemint, nice work.
I can't help but be apprehensive though, getting into bed with EA could be the kiss of death to an indie house.

Link

Dan
Posted 11:26am 04/5/11

so Dan, why lock the SuperBoss thread?

Sigh, why do I have to explain this every time. His post was written in a way that was not promotable to our news page without a complete re-write. There was no sense in linking new commenters to the original post because there was no existing discussion and less information (not to mention a news dot com dot au link as reference).

Link

Obes
Posted 11:35am 04/5/11

Sigh, why do I have to explain this every time

Because its a community and people like to see the community get props ? Then we can give grats to those props.

His post was written in a way that was not promotable to our news page without a complete re-write.

But how is anyone to know what is or isn't promotable ? Maybe a sticky for people who give a damn and want to be promoted/credited so they can conform to your style guide/template/whateveristheproblem.

Probably could have avoided the need to sigh and this post by replying to his post before locking it saying "Good find" rewriting to be a news post achievement added to SuperBoss. Then superboss and his posse would be all "dan he is super cool and stuff, and superboss is down with those qgl homies"

But meh either way.

Link

Khel
Posted 11:36am 04/5/11

Will be interesting to see what happens, since EA already own Melbourne mobile games developer Iron Monkey, I wonder if they'll run the two studios separately or merge them together into one huge mobile games studio.

Still, it should be pretty good for the guys at Firemint, I have some friends who work at Iron Monkey and working for EA comes with a lot of benefits. You get 12 free games a year (one each month), massive discounts on any EA related stuff you want to buy, and stock options.

Link

Scooter
Posted 11:48am 04/5/11

SuperBoss' quote had "Start Sidebar End Sidebar" in it, so it's not like he put a whole lot of effort into his post that Dan destroyed. Dan does seem to be a little more Nuke/New News heavy, rather than promote, compared to some of the other Modmins, but I highly doubt he activly sets out to 'steal' news from posters which is what some people seem to be suggesting.

A clearer guideline of that is needed to be promoted (do you need to post something then send an email saying 'promote this post please' ? ) I see a lot of DarkJedi's post are very structured and very news worthy which dont get 'news status' but they also don't get locked and reposted as news by a mod/admin.

Link

`ViPER`
Posted 12:05pm 04/5/11

You get 12 free games a year (one each month)

Why wouldnt they just be given ALL ea games for free? It wouldnt cost them anything?

Link

Scooter
Posted 12:07pm 04/5/11

Because one a month encourages staff retention.

Link

Khel
Posted 12:18pm 04/5/11

Its a pretty sweet deal considering the places I've worked in the past we got nothing free at all, not even copies of the games we actually worked on. But then it is possible I just worked for shit companies.

Link

kettels
Posted 01:58pm 04/5/11

Be interesting to see how this plays out, and how it will affect the people already working there. The first thing i thought of was that now you'll have to buy each car separately as DLC for Real Racing

Link

skythra
Posted 02:20pm 04/5/11

Sigh, why do I have to explain this every time. His post was written in a way that was not promotable to our news page without a complete re-write. There was no sense in linking new commenters to the original post because there was no existing discussion and less information (not to mention a news dot com dot au link as reference).

Bothered to re-write the post here anyway?

But can't be bothered to at least give a notation for thanking him?

If you find it a chore to reply to people when they ask you a question, perhaps being a forum mod isn't for you?

Lucky I ♥ you anyway so i don't really care, i was just confused myeslf :P

Every time i think i've made a good thread it usually gets completely ignored no matter it's relevance to the gaming community or not.

Link

blahnana
Posted 03:03pm 04/5/11

This is excellent news unless you're an employee at Firemint.

Link

Dazhel
Posted 03:17pm 04/5/11

Because one a month encourages staff retention.

Overheard in the staff kitchen: The pay is shit, the hours are shit, the conditions are shit but hell I'm sticking around for the monthly free game!

Link

Khel
Posted 03:20pm 04/5/11

The hours and the conditions aren't shit, maybe in the EA of 5 years ago, but not really anymore. The pay is shit, but then the pay is shit for games anywhere in Australia really (well, relative to what you could get paid for doing the same sort of work in another field).

Link

blahnana
Posted 05:51pm 04/5/11

Khel, what's the ratio of dev studios EA has closed in Australia vs dev studios EA owns in Australia.

Link

Khel
Posted 06:17pm 04/5/11

I dunno, the only one they closed is Pandemic isn't it? Visceral and Iron Monkey are still doing good down here, I dunno if they own any others in Australia. I'm just going on the fact that I've got three friends who work at Iron Monkey, and they love being at an EA studio, so it can't be all bad.

Link

blahnana
Posted 09:30pm 04/5/11

Pretty sure they closed a dev studio on the Gold Coast too

Link

Dazhel
Posted 09:42pm 04/5/11

^ EA Studio Oz

Commenting has been locked for this item.

20 Comments

Show