EA to acquire Real Racing, Flight Control dev Firemint

EA announced today that it has entered an agreement to acquire Firemint, the developer behind casual hits like Real Racing and Flight Control. The deal is set to close within four weeks, and financial details were not disclosed in the announcement. While Firemint has mostly focused on iPhone and iPad titles, it ported Flight Control to the PS3 and DS.

"The Firemint team is remarkable for its critical and commercial success," said EA Interactive general manager Barry Cottle in the announcement. “Having them as part of EAi will accelerate our position as worldwide leader in game development for mobile devices and online gaming platforms.”

This is part of EA's growing effort to capitalize on the mobile and social games market. The company has already acquired a few developers, such as Playfish and Mobile Post Production. EA's John Schappert, credited with the push into the social games market, recently left EA to join their biggest competitor in the social games space, Zynga.