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Today, Electronic Arts announced an agreement to acquire Firemint, the maker of several hit games on mobile platforms.

The news comes on the heels of EA's acquisition of Mobile Post Production, a cross-platform development studio that ports games for smartphones.

"The Firemint team is remarkable for its critical and commercial success," Barry Cottle, executive vice president and general manger of EA Interactive, said in a statement. "The added technical expertise of MPP, combined with the creative talent of Firemint and our EAi studio teams, fuels EA's leadership in delivering top-selling, high-quality games across mobile phones and smartphones, tablets, and future digital interactive entertainment platforms."

Of the thousands of games that flooded the gates of the iTunes App Store in its early days, Firemint was one of the first development companies to hold solid positions on the Paid Apps most popular list. Its most notable hit games, Flight Control and the Real Racing franchise for both iPhone and iPad, have been popular mainstays in the Top 100 Apps lists since their release. Firemint's gone on to add other platforms to its repertoire, including Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.

The deal between EA and Firemint is expected to close within four weeks. Financial details were not disclosed.… Read more

It's a weird time for the NFL, to say the least. The league has been in a state of suspension since the Super Bowl in February, engaged in a lockout that seems, at the moment, to be lifted. And, of course, the NFL draft is about to kick off tonight amid the confusion. No better time to check out the latest edition of EA Sports' Madden franchise, which was unveiled today in playable form during an event in New York City's Times Square.

Enter EA Sports, which decided to engage in an unorthodox campaign of its own for this year's Madden 12 by putting the yearly cover athlete up for a bracket-based public vote.

In a shocker, the Cleveland Brown's gritty running back Peyton Hillis beat out the controversial Mike Vick, becoming the first cover athlete on EA's box in recent history who most people can't even recognize.

The cover photo shoot happened as a live event in Times Square, and alongside the session were the first playable versions of Madden 12, tucked away in a press tent. Needless to say, I stuck around to play (I'm a bit of a New York Jets fan, in case you didn't know).

I also spoke with Madden 12's art director, Mike Young, and executive producer, Phil Frazier, about how this year's version will fare amid a season that's still very much in flux. In addition, I asked about my continual pet peeve: Bill Belichick's mysterious absence from the Madden franchise. Check out the video above for the interview. Down below, I'll briefly discuss the game and my initial impressions.… Read more

Back in February, EA Mobile (along with a few other publishers) held a huge sale on iOS games. Good news: it's sale time once again, and this time Android users are getting some discount love as well.

From now until Monday, April 25, three dozen games in EA's catalog--including some recent titles that weren't available last time--are on sale for 99 cents each.

Update: It turns out the Android games are $1.99 each. EA's extremely misleading press release and promotional banners (like the one at right) made no mention of this. Dumb, dumb move, EA.… Read more

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

New rules in Europe prevent Internet advertisers from tracking people without permission

The next version of Apple's OS X operating system may have a do-not-track option in the built-in Safari browser

Toshiba has a new hard drive that will self destruct in the wrong hands

Google now allows you to set your own background image in Gmail

You can now control your Netflix queue with motion control in Microsot Kinect

The Nook Color is coming to Staples

The next Madden NFL game will launch August 30

The original Crysis was a PC game so graphically demanding that it became, in its day, a benchmark for the highest-end computers. While Crysis 2 still hits high graphic standards on the PC, we gave the console version a whirl--it's the first Crysis game available on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

So, can Crytek still work its magic using 5-year-old consoles?

Scott: Moving through a post-apocalyptic landscape--with a gun in hand, no less--is hardly a novel experience in gaming. The fact that Crysis 2 adds even more gaming cliches to its checklist--battle-destroyed New York City, crippling virus outbreak, alien … Read more

All the consumers who complain about paying $60 for a video game have an important ally in their corner.

Ben Cousins, general manager of Electronic Arts' Easy Studios, told Rock, Paper, Shotgun it's simply awful that consumers must shell out $60 for a game they may or may not like.

"I can't think of anything more exploitative than gating all of your content behind having to pay someone $60," Cousins told the U.K.-based gaming blog in an interview posted yesterday. "That's a really harsh business model if you think about it objectively.&… Read more

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Microsoft is said to be scrapping the Zune player, but not the Zune brand.

Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile follow AT&T's lead and drop some or all charges for calls and texts to Japanese, or connected to earthquake relief.

AT&T is about to set broadband data caps for U-verse customers.

Yahoo adds Facebook chat to its Yahoo Mail client.

AOL and T-Mobile launch Play by AOL Music for Android to stream music to your mobile phone.

T-Mobile announces a 10GB per month data plan that does not come cheap.… Read more

When it comes to controversy and Fox News, Electronic Arts is glowing in its praise.

Speaking to IndustryGamers in an interview published yesterday, EA Games Label President Frank Gibeau said that drumming up some controversy around a game isn't "a bad thing." In fact, Gibeau told the gaming publication that he believes developers trying to build an audience around a new title "should court controversy."

Controversy is nothing new in the gaming space, especially when it comes to shooters. Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, once the most popular game ever released, allowed gamers to participate in a massacre … Read more

I grew up playing video games and was part of the era of going to arcades and dropping quarter after quarter into my favorite games. Back then, if you would have told me that one day I could play the same games on a mobile phone I would probably have said, "I doubt it, and who would want to lug one of those giant things around anyway?" In the '80s, mobile phones were huge. In other words, I would never have believed it.

Now, there are hundreds of games in the iTunes App Store that bring old classics to your touch screen. Not all of them are perfect, certainly. Sometimes the controls don't translate well to the touch screen, for example. But even with mediocre controls, it's still fun to be able to play a game you loved as a kid while you're commuting to work or in between classes.

This week, two games were released that were favorites of mine in the arcades, and both work relatively well on the touch screen. My question to you is, What games from the old days should be made for iOS? What games should not? Let's talk about it in the comments.

This week's apps are a classic gory fighting game and an arcade basketball remake that might already be one of my favorite games of 2011.… Read more