The Australia-based game studio was founded in 1999. However, it wasn't until 2009 that the company started to garner widespread attention. In March 2009, Firemint released Flight Control for the iPhone and the game went on to become an instant smash. To date, more than 4.5 million copies of the game have been sold and it is available on the iPhone, iPad, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, Android, PC and PlayStation 3.
Firemint has also made a splash with its Real Racing series of games. Real Racing 2 HD is one of my favorite games to show off the power of the iPad 2's new features. Nearly 2 million copies of the Real Racing series have been sold to date.
The Firemint acquisition is just the latest in a series of moves that have EA aiming more at the social and mobile gaming markets. EA recently announced that it had bought Mobile Post Production (MPP), a company that focuses on cross-platform mobile development and porting mobile games to other platforms.
In October 2010, EA purchased popular mobile publisher Chillingo and in November 2009, the company acquired social gaming company Playfish.