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Disney hooks Playdom in $563M acquisition

  • By Eddie Makuch, GameSpot
  • Posted Jul 27, 2010 4:14 pm PT

Entertainment giant acquires casual gamemaker for not-so-small fortune.

Disney's slate of family-friendly characters includes epic names like Mickey Mouse, Hannah Montana, and others, but the company isn't stopping there. Disney is staying that sociable route and today announced it will acquire casual gamemaker Playdom for more than half a billion dollars.

Disney Magic Kingdom gets bigger with its newest acquisition.

Disney Magic Kingdom gets bigger with its newest acquisition.

The deal will see Disney obtain Playdom--which was founded just two-and-a-half years ago--and its properties for $563.2 million. Additionally, Playdom shareholders can expect a "performance-linked earn out of up to $200 million" on top of the previous financial figure, according to Disney. The deal is expected to be complete by the end of Disney's 2010 fiscal year.

Playdom is famous for its casual Facebook games, which include Social City, Sorority Life, Market Street, and Bola. Additionally, Playdom's label reportedly collects 42 million active players each month.

Disney also has a stake in Microsoft's upcoming Kinect gesture-recognition technology. At E3 2010, Disney teased a game announcement for the new tech and also revealed that programming from its ESPN cable network will become available when Kinect launches in November.

19 Comments

  • AirBizkit89

    Posted Jul 30, 2010 3:05 pm GMT

    @sicklysunstorm oh ok i see you cant say nothin else so you start talking about my typing skills. you know your right and im glad too put 2 n 2 togetherr n c? i know your smart u can figure it out without me. u got allot of time im sure of it.

  • deth420

    Posted Jul 29, 2010 4:40 pm GMT

    Heh yeah forgot bout spidey 3. but after that I believe they started there own production company?(am I wrong) maybe thats why they seemed to get better. didnt let a studio make the movie for them! any rate, Iron man 2 sucked! they better get back on track if they want people to shell out the bucks to see them.

  • SicklySunStorm

    Posted Jul 29, 2010 10:55 am GMT

    @AirBizkit89 - look, you got it wrong once by assuming I had made some comment about Monster Hunter - you were wrong. Never commented on that. Now, you remember that there were some words exchanged about phones etc. Well done, you remembered correctly that time.

    I don't think I even have to reply to what you said, because frankly, I can't. It doesn't make sense. "We deff know whos real. oh ya how like puttin tape over your iphone man hows that for topic". That's not even a sentence. In any language or dialect. Now, I will say it one last time - leave the personal attacks please. I have no further interest in liasing with someone who can't even string a paragraph or sentence together. Good day.

  • AirBizkit89

    Posted Jul 29, 2010 10:31 am GMT

    @sicklysunstorm ha ya ok im sure u know especially when you laugh at your own jokes like a valley girl ya we deff know whos real. oh ya how like puttin tape over your iphone man hows that for topic?

  • King-gamer

    Posted Jul 29, 2010 2:17 am GMT

    @deth420

    LOLno. Spiderman 3 sucks, and it came out before Disney bought Marvel. So who are we to blame? Disney? LOL.

    @sicklysunstorm No where in my post did I say I looked down on another gamer. I merely stated I play "real" games, in other words, games which do not suck, which is not true for many facebook games.

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Jul 28, 2010 12:21 pm GMT

    Bravo for them

  • deth420

    Posted Jul 28, 2010 9:14 am GMT

    "King-gamer
    Posted Jul 28, 2010 3:15 am MT

    I was personally pretty worried about Disney's acquisition of Marvel myself. So far I've seen nothing has changed, and I hope it stays that way. But anyway, I don't play FaceBook games because 99.9% of them suck. I play real games. >.>"


    Nothing changed? Marvel was making really good movies, iron man , hulk, even there anime's. disney buys them, and iron man 2 comes out, its the worst peice of crap ever! they should be ashamed for even putting it out!

  • mrzero1982pt2

    Posted Jul 28, 2010 8:50 am GMT

    @sicklysunstorm you dont understand. when a movie is made, and it is not from said company's studio, they coup a moderate profit. the budget for iron man 2 was over 100 million. iron man 2 made that in its first week. 8 percent of 100? so disney couped 92 percent. paramount got 8. is that right? time warner(who owns dc) allows other studios to make their movies all the time. watchmen was from paramount, they SPLIT the returns, and i think paramount got the returns from the dvd/ondemand/blu ray in full. the only movies dc will not let go to other companies are their top tier films(superman, batman, green lantern, wonder woman, constantine(dc's VERTIGO line) disney will not allow that. disney has already said after all of these distribution deals are done, they will make marvel movies EXCLUSIVELY under disney/touchstone/hollywood. have you not seen what disney has done with companies which want out? they destroyed miramax, which was named after the weinstein brothers PARENTS! they wouldnt even give it to them because they were angry about kill bill and other movies from miramax that were rated R! power rangers? they had that for ten years, and when people said it SUCKED, they just destroyed it and sent it to new zealand. do not trust disney. i never have, never will. kudos to that company getting half a billion, but now i would just leave.

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Jul 28, 2010 8:19 am GMT

    Well, Disney does want to rule the world in one way or another...

  • SicklySunStorm

    Posted Jul 28, 2010 7:20 am GMT

    @King-gamer - whilst I don't personally enjoy or like any of the facebook games myself, belittling them by saying they're not real games is a bit of a cop-out if you ask me... they're games whether you like them or not. You only have to read the figures that play these games to realise that they do have a place... like the Wii, a lot of them are sucking in previous non-gamers, and getting them interested in the hobby which is only a good thing. They entertain millions of people, whether we like or appreciate them or not.

    The funny thing is, almost everyone who could be classified as a non-gamer by most of us who have played games all our lives, ARE actually gamers, almost everyone is... it's just many choose to play them without a computer involved. Board games etc are all relevant, but many of us "core" gamers (I hate that phrase!) shun them, because they don't measure up to the "coolness" of video games... and that's sad, because games are games, whether you like to play on a screen or a tabletop.

    I suppose what I'm saying is looking down on another fellow gamer and their tastes because they like games you don't is incredibly sad... if the shoe was on the other foot in another situation, say, you're at a classical orchestral concert wearing a Metallica T-Shirt and 90% of the highbrow crowd look down on you for your "silly musical tastes", you might get for a second how a non-gamer feels when you stand there crowing and lording your ideas of gaming as gospel.

  • King-gamer

    Posted Jul 28, 2010 3:15 am GMT

    I was personally pretty worried about Disney's acquisition of Marvel myself. So far I've seen nothing has changed, and I hope it stays that way. But anyway, I don't play FaceBook games because 99.9% of them suck. I play real games. >.>

  • SicklySunStorm

    Posted Jul 28, 2010 1:19 am GMT

    @mrzero1982pt2.... You can hardly call Disney getting 92% of the profits evil... they own the rights, why shouldn't they claim that? I don't know a decent earning business in existence that wouldn't make the same decision. Business is business, and it's ruthless. That's life.

  • mrzero1982pt2

    Posted Jul 27, 2010 11:44 pm GMT

    well guys when you look it up, you will realize how evil disney is. disney bought marvel when iron man 2 was in development and paramount who had the film rights to iron man, had to give disney 92 percent of the profits. when you look at what disney does, you will realize why i feel they will hurt marvel and every other company they buy out.

  • FallenOneX

    Posted Jul 27, 2010 11:13 pm GMT

    Hopefully this mean more casual games featuring Marvel characters. Probably not, which is pretty good since I don't have a Facebook account.

  • Flex1

    Posted Jul 27, 2010 9:00 pm GMT

    MRZero has it ever occurred to you that your ridiculous paranoia and hate of disney is something akin to closet love for all things Disney?
    You do understand that hate and love have a very very thin line separating them.

  • wopchop10

    Posted Jul 27, 2010 8:53 pm GMT

    @ mrzero1982pt2

    If abandoning Marvel because a larger company bought them and allowed to operate as they usually would sounds like a good idea to you your name sounds a lot more accurate than I have anticipated.

  • Ryking

    Posted Jul 27, 2010 6:53 pm GMT

    That's a pretty lame reason to stop reading Marvel Comics, MrZero. I'll admit I was a little nervous myself about Disney's acquisition of Marvel, but both companies have said in numerous interviews, that Marvel is going to be left alone to do their thing.

  • Pradmetro

    Posted Jul 27, 2010 5:57 pm GMT

    mrzero1982pt2

    Seriously dood? You're holding a grudge against Disney for their acquisition? Get over it, It's not like they are forcing the subsidiaries to conform to their standards. Marvel is still themselves, it's just that disney isn't going to lay a finger on them, except raking in revenues, but that's a different subject.

  • SSJ4CHRIS

    Posted Jul 27, 2010 5:56 pm GMT

    I'm not into Facebook or XBOX/Kinect so that doesn't matter to me. I grew up on Marvel Comics though, so no matter who owns it, I will always Make Mine Marvel! X-MEN, Spider-Man, Avengers, Deadpool over DC anyday.

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