While Electronic Arts announced a deal earlier this week to acquire the casual game publisher PopCap with $750 million in cash and stock, a new story claims via unnamed source that PopCap actually got another offer that would have netted the publisher even more money up front. Forbes reports that Facebook-based game publisher Zynga reportedly proposed a $1 billion cash offer to PopCap.
The story adds that Zynga would have gotten a line of credit from Goldman Sachs to help finance the deal. So why didn"t PopCap take the money and run? It"s likely because while EA"s offer was less than Zynga"s at first the deal will also give the company an additional $550 million if PopCap reached certain revenue milestones. If PopCap succeeds in making those milestones the final purchase will in fact be a whopping $1.3 billion.
Forbes" story also adds that yet another bidder for PopCap was China-based Tencent. There"s no word on what that company was proposing to acquire PopCap Games. Last February, Tencent acquired a majority stake in Los Angeles based Riot Games, the developers of the popular free to play game League of Legends. While the company did not officially disclosed how much it paid for Riot Games it is rumored that Tencent spent nearly $400 million on the deal.
Meanwhile PopCap"s web site has posted up word on the EA deal and pokes some fun at both itself and its new owners as it reveals some upcoming "future" games like Zuma: The SwampLife Edition, Peggle: Dead Space – Bjorn’s Breakfast, Bejeweled Battlefield Blitz and Plants vs. ZombEAz: NFL Lockout Edition.