Electronic Arts buys British game maker Chillingo

Electronic Arts Inc. confirmed Wednesday it had purchased Chillingo, the British publisher of Angry Birds and other iPhone and iPad games.

People close to the deal said EA paid less than $20 million in cash. Holly Rockwood, EA’s spokeswoman, would not comment on the terms.

The deal comes on the heels of the $400-million purchase of mobile game publisher Ngmoco Inc. by DeNA Co., a Japanese mobile Internet company that’s trying to establish a beachhead in the U.S. mobile games market.

Chillingo, founded in 2002 by Chris Byatte and Joe Weeand based in Macclesfield, England, publishes numerous mobile titles created by independent game developers. On Wednesday, its two top titles, Cut the Rope and Angry Birds, occupied the No. 1 and 3 spots, respectively, on the chart of top paid apps at iTunes.

Angry Birds has sold more than 6.5 million copies, while Cut the Rope, developed by ZeptoLab in Russia, sold 1 million copies within the first 10 days of its release Oct. 7. Neither Rovio, which developed Angry Birds, nor ZeptoLab is part of EA’s acquisition.

With sales for video games played on traditional consoles in steep decline, large game publishers are looking elsewhere for revenue, including mobile and social games. EA last year purchased Playfish, a developer of social games for Facebook, in a deal worth $400 million in cash.

As games for the iPhone and iPad take off, some traditional game companies are migrating their titles to those devices. EA has been particularly aggressive on this front, commanding two of the top 10 paid games at iTunes’ App store Wednesday with Scrabble and Boggle.

“By acquiring Chillingo, EA Mobile is increasing its market leadership on the Apple platform as well as reaffirming its position as the world’s leading wireless entertainment publisher,” EA said in a statement.

Shares of Redwood City, Calif.-based EA fell 18 cents to $15.40 Wednesday.

alex.pham@latimes.com