Playdom
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| Subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company | |
| Industry | video games, social network service |
| Founded | December 6, 2008 |
| Defunct | September 1, 2016 |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
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Key people
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John Pleasants, former CEO (resigned from Disney, November 2013) David Sobeski, former CTO (left Disney, December 2013) Brad Serwin, former COO (left Disney, March 2012) Dan Yue, Founder Chris Wang, Founder Ling Xiao, Founder |
| Parent |
Disney Interactive (The Walt Disney Company) |
| Website | playdom.com |
Playdom was an online social network game developer popular on Facebook, Google+ and MySpace. The company was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area 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.
It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney Interactive, itself a division of The Walt Disney Company. On September 1, 2016, Disney announced the closure of the remaining Playdom games, Marvel: Avengers Alliance and its mobile sequel at the end of the month, effectively shuttering the studio.
On November 12, 2009, Playdom acquired Green Patch and Trippert Labs. In September 2009, competitor Zynga initiated a trade secrets lawsuits against Playdom and 22 other rivals, including Green Patch. These lawsuits were finally settled in November 2010, less than 4 months after Disney's acquisition of Playdom in July 2010.
On March 31, 2010, Playdom announced the acquisition of Argentina-based online game developer Three Melons for an undisclosed amount. In April 2010, Playdom closed all but one of the games from the Green Patch studio six months post-acquisition. On April 26, 2010, Playdom announced the acquisition of Merscom, a North Carolina-based social game developer. On May 19, 2010, they acquired Acclaim Games. 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. On July 8, 2010, Playdom announced it acquired Metaplace, Inc.. The pricing of the deal was not disclosed.
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.
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Wikipedia