Game publishers Electronic Arts (EA) was rumoured to be in the process of purchasing PopCap games for a massive $1 billion recently, and it turns out it wasn't far from the truth.

The company yesterday announced its purchase of the studio for at least $650 million, according to Gamespot. PopCap games specialises in mobile games and is the studio that brought us addictive classics such as Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled.

In addition to the huge cash price, EA is also paying $100 million in shares to “certain stockholders of PopCap”, as well as offering $50 million in employee retention awards.

Furthermore, if the company demonstrates healthy sales in the following months EA will increase the purchasing price. If PopCap generates more than $343 million in revenue by the end of 2013 EA will pay an additional $550 million, while anything less than $91 million would receive no additional compensation.

“PopCap's great studio talent and powerful IP adds to EA's momentum and accelerate our drive towards a $1 billion digital business. EA's global studio and publishing network will help PopCap rapidly expand their business to more digital devices, more countries, and more channels.”

After the acquisition announcement was made however, EA also dropped news yesterday that it would be retiring a number of its online titles in the coming months. According to EA's Service Updates page, online capabilities will be removed for Army of Two, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Need for Speed Most Wanted and more on August 11. The full list can be viewed here.

More games will be deactivated as the year progresses, with EA stating that these titles makes up less than 1% of their online traffic, and thus wanted to invest its resources somewhere else.