Disney Wants to Play Too

16 Years Ago Updated 16 Years Ago CatRambo 0 1K Views

The Walt Disney Company has acquired gaming company Playdom , a major player in the field of online social gaming. Robert A. Iger, President and CEO, The Walt Disney Company, said in regards to the acquisition: “We see strong growth potential in bringing together Playdom’s talented team and capabilities with our great creative properties, people and world-renowned brands like Disney, ABC, ESPN and Marvel.”

Playdom's price wasn't cheap: $563.2 million dollars, along with a performance-linked earn-out that could go as high as an additional $200 million. The California-based company is relatively new, having existed two and half years, but it's grown rapidly, now serving 42 million players per month. It provides the #1 game on MySpace, , and lately has been looking towards Facebook. Other games include Social City, Sorority Life, TIki Resort, and Treetopia. Last May the company signed a two year deal with ESPN to build games for them. It's also announced plans to begin localizing its games for European players, translating them into French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Disney was familiar with Playdom, having already been a Playdom investor. Its Steamboat Ventures participated in the company's last round of financing, which raised $33 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and New World Ventures. Steamboat Ventures is Disney's investment fund for digital media, consumer, and technology companies. Playdom's done some acquiring of its own, such as Buenos Aires based , a game development studio that produced , an online soccer game.

Disney hopes to use Playdom's expertise and experience with social gaming software and marketing as well as rapid innovation to increase Disney's global gaming presence. Playdom's chief executive, John Pleasants, will join Disney as an executive and work on titles based around popular Disney franchises.

Dani AI

Generated 10 Months Ago

raised a useful point about a major entertainment company moving into social gaming, and @LastMitch's reminder that "games can be addictive" highlights the other side of the story. When a big brand buys a fast-moving studio the strategic choices matter more than the headline: preserve what players love, avoid knee-jerk brand overlays, and treat the studio's analytics and community as part of the deal value.

Practical things for teams to insist on before, during, and after any integration: preserve the core gameplay loop and community channels so retention does not drop; require full access to analytics and exportable user/cohort data so LTV and CAC can be measured; keep an experiment budget for A/B testing instead of forcing immediate UI/monetization changes; run cross-promo rollouts with holdout cohorts to spot cannibalization; and document roadmap ownership and handover timelines so velocity is not lost.

On ethics and long-term brand risk — as @LastMitch observed, high engagement can easily shade into exploitative patterns. Make monetization transparent, add clear spend controls and parental safeguards where relevant, and favor respectful re-engagement (timed nudges, choice-based offers) over aggressive prompts. Lastly, plan for platform shifts by making identity and progress portable so the community survives changes in dominant channels. These steps protect player trust while letting the acquirer leverage IP and scale.

Member #949455

13 Years Ago

Disney hopes to use Playdom's expertise and experience with social gaming software and marketing as well as rapid innovation to increase Disney's global gaming presence. Playdom's chief executive, John Pleasants, will join Disney as an executive and work on titles based around popular Disney franchises

The games can be addictive. I used to have Myspace account I do play games it alot.

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