One of the worst kept secrets in Silicon Valley right now is that Electronic Arts (EA), which is one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, is about to buy social gaming startup Playfish for a rumored $250 million.  Neither side is ‘officially’ commenting on the speculation – but several sources are indicating the deal could be complete within the week.  The acquisition of Playfish would immediately place EA in one of the key top positions in the social gaming ranks with titles like, Restaurant City and Pet Society.

This comes only days after John Schappert, the newly appointed chief operating officer at EA made the following comments in an interview with Wall Street Journal staff writer Yukari Kane indicating that he thought social gaming may be just another ‘tech bubble’:

“Social games have attracted a lot of eyeballs.  Venture money is pouring into it.  Is it sustainable or is it a bubble?  There are a lot of parallels to mobile.  For those who say that packaged goods games (sold in retail stores) are going away, they are a little ahead of themselves.”

Don’t forget that earlier this year John Pleasants, formerly the No. 2 executive at EA, joined the startup social gaming company Playdom as its CEO and is in the midst of raising a venture capital round.

If the acquisition does actually go through as expected, can this mean we can expect EA titles crossing over to social gaming platforms like Facebook, MySpace and hi5?  When given a chance to confirm and discuss the purchase of Playfish, a spokesperson for EA replied, “EA doesn’t comment on speculation about our acquisition strategy.”  What do you think about EA’s rumored acquisition?

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