According to Reuters, Electronic Arts just bought Angry Birds publishers Chillingo for $20 million in cash.
Apparently early reports caused some confusion as to who actually owned Angry Birds and the difference between developer Rovio and publisher Chillingo. To clarify, Angry Birds developer Rovio Mobile has just tweeted the above, “We have not sold out. We have not sold to EA. We are Rovio. We own Angry Birds.”
Going by the above and the reported price, the Angry Birds franchise is not part of today’s sale. From Rovio Mobile; “We own all rights, Chillingo is just a publisher.”
Aside from recently debuting for free on the Android, the Angry Birds franchise has expanded into toys and games and has a rumored movie in the works.
Chillingo’s second most notable game after Angry Birds is something called Cut the Rope, also from a third party developer, ZeptoLab.
EA most recently acquired another social gaming company, Playfish, for $300 million in cash and $100 million in earnout.
Update: Angry Birds “Mighty Eagle” Peter Vesterbacka tells TechCrunch,
“We’re remaining an independent company and are continuing full speed ahead. This sale has no impact on us, as Chillingo is just a publisher of the iPhone and iPad games, and that’s it.”