EA on the hunt for smaller acquisitions

One year after EA failed in its $2 billion attempt to purchase GTA publisher Take Two, the firm has said it is no longer interested in such large-scale acquisitions.

However, EA Chief financial Officer Eric Brown says that the group is still interested in smaller takeovers.

According to a Reuters report, Brown told attendees at the Pacific Crest Technology Leadership Forum that EA is interested buying franchises or online publishing technologies.

EA’s target companies tend to be valued at under $1 billion, Brown said.

Back in February last year, EA made public its intent to purchase Take-Two for around $2bn. The deal would have given EA a monopoly in the sports game market, as well as the GTA franchise. Take-Two resisted the offer.

"That’s a deal whose timeframe has come and long gone,” said Brown. “We’re just not interested in a large-scale, traditional packaged-good publishing deal.”

Meanwhile, the publisher has made further pledges to shift much of its focus eastward, with Brown stating that the publisher remains “underweighted” in Asia. A recent Develop report put a fifth of EA’s global enterprise in the Asia region.