A scandal breaks out in the network. The president of EA Labels said that Apple paid a huge sum for EA to postpone the release of the Android version of Plants vs. Zombies 2 to a later date. Apple claims that this is a lie.
According to the Giant Bomb resource, at one of the EA meetings, Frank Gibeau, president of EA Labels, spoke quite unequivocally about how the company cooperates with the guys from Cupertino.
“Apple paid us a lot of money for canceling the Android version of Plants vs Zombies 2,” he said.
This phrase was informally confirmed by some participants of the meeting, but, for example, a representative of PopCap said that he “could not comment on internal meetings.”
What made Apple take such a step, resembling a struggle for exclusives between console vendors? Fear of Android?
It is very possible, because, according to Frank, Plants vs. Zombies 2, launched in China on Android markets, surpassed the iPhone version of the game in sales by a ratio of six to one.
Immediately after the Giant Bomb material, two refutations followed. Firstly, EA stated that there were no such agreements between the companies.
“This comment from the workshop was taken out of context and misunderstood,” the company said.
Secondly, Apple noted that the Giant Bomb article is not true. They say they didn’t pay money.
Our colleagues from Pocket Gamer believe that the phrase could really have been taken out of context. Gibau may have been joking when answering a question from colleagues why Plants vs. Zombies 2 is still not on Google Play.
In part, unwittingly, this version is confirmed by the authors of the original material, who wrote that such transactions are carried out not by transferring a heavy suitcase with money, and are actively accompanied by PR.
But we were thinking about something else: what if Gibau meant that the deal did not take place. EA looked at the performance of the game in China and decided that it would be more profitable to release the project on Google Play, and not take money from Apple?
What do you think?
Sources: http://www.giantbomb.com and http://www.pocketgamer.biz