Kristian Segerstrale may be only 32, but yesterday the London-based computer games entrepreneur sold his second company, earning himself £6.9 million. Playfish, which makes games such as Pet Society for Facebook, was snapped up by Electronic Arts for $275 million (£165 million) in cash, a $25 million retention bonus and $100 million of possible earn-out payments if profit targets are met.

That’s a fast return for a business that is only two years old and which reported a turnover of £1.6 million for the 15 months to last December. Electronic Arts, the computer games group behind The Sims and FIFA Football, is paying 100 times historic revenues — although insiders say that the developer is growing and already profitable.

Born in Finland, Mr Segerstrale came to Britain to study at Cambridge and the London School of Economics, after which he drifted into the computer games business. “I loved games, and whatever happened I’d have found a way into working in games,” he said yesterday. His first company, Macrospace, was set up in 2001 and developed games for mobile phones. Four years later it was sold into what became Glu Mobile, which floated on Nasdaq in 2007.

“Well, myself and the Macrospace team thought that was that, and we wanted to set up something new. What really excited us was the launch of Facebook and the chance to build games based on a social experience,” Mr Segerstrale, who is now a British citizen, said.

As Facebook was taking off, so did Playfish. Its first game was Who Has the Biggest Brain?, an IQ tester launched in 2007 and played by 20 million people more than 500 million times. More hits followed: Pet Society, where 21 million people a month look after virtual pets; and Restaurant City, where gamers design eateries and invite friends to visit.

The games are free and Playfish makes money by selling add-ons, whether gifts for pets or new gimmicks for restaurants. It reflects an industry shift from “pay to play” — buying the games upfront — to “play to pay”, where players part with cash to get ahead. The games are also intended to be social, and so friends can, for example, exercise each other’s virtual pets.

Playfish consumed £12.5 million in backing from angel investors and Accel Partners and Index Ventures, the venture capitalists. The two companies ended up owning stakes worth at least £40 million at the time of yesterday’s sale, showing that Facebook can generate fortunes, not just in Silicon Valley, but in London, too.

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