Playdom

Playdom, Inc.
Type Subsidiary
Founded 2008
Headquarters Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Key people John Pleasants, former CEO
David Sobeski, former CTO
Brad Serwin, former COO
Dan Yue, Founder
Chris Wang, Founder
Ling Xiao, Founder
Industry video games, social network service
Employees 470[1]
Parent Disney Interactive
(The Walt Disney Company)
Website playdom.com

Playdom is an online social network game developer popular on Facebook, Google+ and MySpace. The company was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area[2] by University of California, Berkeley graduates Ling Xiao and Chris Wang and Swarthmore College graduate Dan Yue. In 2009, the market for games played on social networking sites was valued at $300 million, consisting mostly of online sales of virtual goods.[3]

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney Interactive, itself a division of The Walt Disney Company.

History

On November 12, 2009, Playdom acquired Green Patch and Trippert Labs.[4] In September 2009, competitor Zynga initiated a trade secrets lawsuits against Playdom and 22 other rivals,[5] including Green Patch. These lawsuits were finally settled in November 2010, less than 4 months after Disney's acquisition of Playdom in July 2010.[6]

On March 31, 2010, Playdom announced the acquisition of Argentina-based online game developer Three Melons for an undisclosed amount.[7] In April 2010, Playdom closed all but one of the games from the Green Patch studio six months post-acquisition.[8] On April 26, 2010, Playdom announced the acquisition of Merscom, a North Carolina-based social game developer.[9] On May 19, 2010, they acquired Acclaim Games.[10] On June 7, 2010, Playdom announced the acquisition of gaming developer Hive7 after a $33 million funding round. This marked Playdom's sixth acquisition over the prior year.[11] On July 8, 2010, Playdom announced it acquired Metaplace, Inc.. The pricing of the deal was not disclosed.[12]

On July 27, 2010, The Walt Disney Company acquired Playdom in a $763 million deal. Disney initially paid $563 million for Playdom, which was the No. 3 social game company with about 42 million monthly players at the time of the acquisition. The deal also included a further $200 million in additional payments if Playdom achieves certain growth thresholds.[13]

In May 2011, Playdom has been ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to pay $3 million in fines for collecting and disclosing children's information without parental approval.[14]

In April 2014, Playdom announced the closure of all online games on the Playdom site, including Gardens of Time, Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Kitchen Scramble, Pirates of the Caribbean: Isles of War, Ghosts of Mistwood, Disney City Girl, and Disney Words of Wonder. The games closed on April 25, 2014. RockYou acquired the Facebook games Gardens of Time, Words of Wonder, and Disney City Girl (renamed to City Girl Life).[15]

Games

This is a list of Playdom's current games.[16] Playdom has a total of over 27 million players as of July, 2011.[17]

Sold Games

The following games were sold to RockYou between April and October 2014.

Discontinued Games

References

  1. ↑ "Playdom". LinkedIn. 2011-08-25. Retrieved 2011-09-09.
  2. ↑ Stone, Brad (16 December 2009). "Russian Facebook investor adds stake in Zynga". New York Times. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
  3. ↑ Wawro, Alex (16 December 2009). "Online sale of digital content breaks $1bn in 2009". PC World.
  4. ↑ "Playdom Announces Acquisitions Green Patch Trippert Labs". Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Zynga Goes To The Mattresses 22 Lawsuits Filed This Year And Counting". Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  6. ↑ "Zynga is Extremely Pleased With Playdom Disney Litigation Settlement". Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Playdom Acquires Argentine Game Developer Three Melons". 31 March 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  8. ↑ "Six Months After Acquiring It Playdom is Killing Off Lil Green Patch". Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  9. ↑ "Playdom Announces Acquisition of Merscom" (PDF). Playdom. 2010-04-26. Retrieved 2012-07-03.
  10. ↑ Tom Ivan (2010-05-19). "Playdom Acquires Acclaim - Edge Magazine". Next-gen.biz. Retrieved 2011-09-09.
  11. ↑ "Playdom Announces Acquisition of Hive7" (PDF). Playdom. 2010-06-24. Retrieved 2012-07-03.
  12. ↑ Dean Takahashi, VentureBeat. "Playdom buys Metaplace, which forsook virtual worlds for social games." July 8, 2010.
  13. ↑ http://www.playdom.com//marketing/PDFs/2010-07-27-NYTimesDisneyBuysPlaydom.pdf
  14. ↑ Don Reisinger, CNET. "FTC: Disney's Playdom violated child protection act." May 13, 2011. Retrieved May 13, 2011.
  15. ↑ VentureBeat. RockYou buys three Playdom games from Disney to keep them running
  16. ↑ "Playdom Online Games - Free Games". Playdom.com. Retrieved 2011-09-09.
  17. ↑ "Playdom Games Popularity Trends - 4/7–4 July 2011 - Playdom Gaming". Wildonesgaming.ucoz.com. 2011-07-04. Retrieved 2011-09-09.
  18. ↑ "Game Developers Choice Online Awards 2010 Recipients". Retrieved 2011-11-22.
  19. ↑ Mack, Christopher (2010-06-30). "The Best Facebook Games of 2010". Inside Social Games. Inside Network. Retrieved 2011-11-22.
  20. ↑ Caoili, Eric (2010-12-28). "Gamasutra's Best Of 2010: Top 5 Facebook Social Games". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 2011-05-10.
  21. ↑ Squires, Jim (2010-04-04). "Social City Review". GameZebo. Retrieved 2011-05-10.
  22. ↑ Playdom email sent to players 22 November 2011
  23. ↑ https://playdom.zendesk.com/entries/33972407?locale=1
  24. ↑ http://forum.playdom.com/showthread.php?311343-Wild-Ones-shutting-down-on-August-26-2013-(playdom)

External links