Over the past few weeks, rumors regarding an impending acquisition of Playdom, a prominent supplier of online games on social networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace, by Disney continued to become more substantial. Today, Disney has finally confirmed that it is indeed acquiring the organization for a total sum of $563.2 million. Playdom itself had been acquiring development studios for the last several months, making it an provider on par with Zynga and EA-owned Playfish.
The games currently operated by Playdom on social networking sites have an estimated active playerbase of approximate 42 million unique users. Robert Eiger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, indicated that “this acquisition furthers our strategy of allocating capital to high-growth businesses that can benefit from our many characters, stories and brands, delivering them in a creatively compelling way to a new generation of fans on the platforms they prefer.”
It is unclear at this time whether Disney or Marvel-themed social games will soon be making their way to social networking sites. Playdom CEO John Pleasants indicated that he believes the “we are at the start of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way people of all ages play games with their friends across devices, platforms and geographical boundaries”, and that he believes that Disney “is the ideal partner to further our mission to bring great entertainment to people around the world.”