Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) has closed an acquisition deal with Playfish. Playfish is a company that designs games for social networks such as Facebook. EA is spending $400 million to buy out Playfish. Of the $400 million, $300 million will be given upfront and the additional $100 million will be paid as an earn-out. Rumor has it that EA was considering buying out Playfish competitor Zynga Inc. too.

This past September about 250 million people played games on Facebook. One of Playfish’s most popular games called Pet Society has over 20 million active users. Playfish was started by Kristian Segerstrale and Sebastien de Halleux. Playfish raised venture capital from Accel Partners and Index Ventures.

Playfish is a company that designs game applications for social networks and mobile devices.  Playfish games are available across platforms such as MySpace, Facebook, the iPhone, Google Android, and Bebo.

The company has just announced that they have received about 100 million downloads of their games over the last 18 months. According to the company’s statement regarding the 100 million download, it took the board game Monopoly about 45 years before they reached this milestone.

However installing games through Playfish is free of charge, giving users more accessibility to them.  Playfish has about 30 million monthly active players and 7 published games.  And each of the games were a top 10 on Facebook.

[via IndustryGamers.com]