EA Sports, PlayFish Working On FIFA Superstars

Playfish, the social game developer acquired late last year by Electronic Arts, is working with EA Sports on FIFA Superstars, an adaptation of the mega publisher's popular soccer franchise for Facebook. Before EA purchased the London-based studio for some $300 million, Playfish was best known for producing casual titles on Facebook like Restaurant City and Pet Society, the latter of which currently has nearly 17.4 million monthly active users, according to figures from AppData. Last February, Playfish president and general manager Kristian Segerstrale hinted that the developer was working on a well-known EA brand, predicting its "rapid maturing over the next 12 to 24 months." He also noted that companies producing titles for well-known brands will soon have an advantage over those in the social games market who aren't. EA Sports has seen tremendous success with its FIFA series on traditional video game consoles; the latest entry from the annually released franchise, FIFA 10, has sold more than 9.7 million copies worldwide since launching last October. It's planning to put out an English-language version of FIFA Online, a free-to-play PC version of the soccer game, in June 2010, too. "Our FIFA products connect fans from all over the world who share a common passion for the sport, and soon our partnership with Playfish will allow us to bring the FIFA brand to the growing Facebook community with a new game called FIFA Superstars," said EA Sports president Peter Moore in a post on his company's blog. He added, "Leveraging our football gaming knowledge and marrying it with the social gaming expertise of our partners at Playfish is sure to provide more great opportunities to bring hundreds of millions of new fans to compete against their friends to win the FIFA World Cup through an engaging interactive football experience."