Zynga Acquires NaturalMotion

The social game powerhouse company Zynga has announced that it has purchased mobile game developer NaturalMotion at the price of $527 million. The deal breaks down as $391 million in cash and approximately 39.8 million shares of stock in Zynga.

NaturalMotion is the developer responsible for bringing CSR Racing and the popular football game Backbreaker that was built around the company’s Euphoria physics engine. Backbreaker reached main consoles on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2010 when it was published by 505 Games. A sequel was released in 2011.

The news of the purchase accompanies the announcement that Zynga was laying off 314, roughly 15%, of it’s workforce.