EA Mobile - History

History

EA Mobile was founded in 2004 by a group of EA company veterans. The group was formed/led by John Batter (General Manager) and included Linda Chaplin (head of US sales), Lincoln Wallen (CTO), John Burn (head of European sales), Jay Miller (US sales) and Mike McCabe (head of Asian sales). EA Mobile's initial focus was to change the mobile gaming experience from one that was generally regarded as shallow and low quality to immersive and high quality by leveraging the company's widely recognized franchises, design and development expertise and worldwide scale. EA Mobile launched the division and products simultaneously in the US, Europe and Asia.

In 2006 EA Mobile expanded its footprint by acquiring JAMDAT Mobile. JAMDAT was founded by Scott Lahman and Zack Norman, two ex-Activision executives, and Austin Murray in March of 2000. They were joined in November of that year by Mitch Lasky, who had also worked at Activision, who became the CEO of JAMDAT. JAMDAT went public in late 2004.

On December 9, 2005, it was announced that JAMDAT was going to be purchased by Electronic Arts for US$680 million. The acquisition occurred on February 14, 2006 and the JAMDAT name was retired.

As of November 21, 2006, the Sepulveda Center or Jamdat building (Visible from the 405 Freeway in West Los Angeles), sign has been removed from both sides of the building. KBS Realty purchased the property in June 2006, and will become the anchor tenant.

As of December 8, 2006, EA Mobile LA has been relocated to the EA LA building in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California. The same merger of offices happened in Montreal, where Jamdat Montreal moved from its Old-Montreal location to new offices one floor above EA Montreal's studios located in Place Ville-Marie (Downtown Montreal).

On August 8, 2007, it was announced that Barry Cottle will join EA Mobile as the new Senior Vice President and General Manager.

In October 2010, EA Mobile announced the acquisition of UK based iPhone and iPad games publisher 'Chillingo' for US$20 million in cash. While Chillingo publishes the popular Angry Birds and Cut the Rope games, the deal did not include those properties.

On January 11, 2011, Electronic Arts and PopCap Games presented Bejeweled but that was a URL.

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