Why Playfish Sold Itself To EA

WALL STREET JOURNAL — Videogame maker Electronic Arts’s $300 million acquisition of London-based social-gaming start-up Playfish created a stir in November, in part because of the size of the deal and because it was the first entry by a major videogame publisher into the fast-growing social games category. While the deal was clearly a financial bonanza for Playfish, which had raised just $18 million in venture-capital funding from firms Accel Partners and Index Ventures, some wondered if Playfish was risking getting lost in EA’s sprawling organization...