Paidcontent (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
Reports have been flying around about Electronic Arts ( NSDQ: ERTS ) potentially buying hot social-gaming company Playfish—with sources telling Inside Social Games that the deal may have closed “a few weeks ago”, and GamesIndustry.biz reporting that it was worth $250 million. EA’s response to us: “We don’t comment on rumors about our acquisition strategy.”...
VentureBeat (Free subscription) | 10/06/2009
Playdom, the hot social gaming company that dominates games on MySpace and is moving into Facebook and iPhone games, is raising a significant round of venture capital, VentureBeat has learned. The company is raising a sizable round in the double-digit millions and is seeking a valuation around $100 million to $200 million, according to venture capital sources. “I think they’re going to...
Paidcontent (Free subscription) | 09/18/2009
Not much differentiates one hot new social gaming startup from another. Sure they have different games—and maybe even slightly different business models—but for the most part, they make their money through some combination of user-generated revenue (micro-transactions, virtual goods, subscriptions, etc.) and advertising. What’s really interesting is when other people in the industry—rival...
VentureBeat (Free subscription) | 07/21/2009
Playdom has launched its first iPhone game, Mobsters: Big Apple, as an extension to its hit version on the MySpace social network. The hot social games startup has the No. 1 game on MySpace with its Mobsters title, which has 13.5 million users. The company hopes to repeat its success on MySpace on the iPhone as it makes a very deliberate, if late, move to take on rivals such as Social Gaming Network...
Startup Meme (Free subscription) | 07/08/2009
Skyfire has made a key hire as it appointed Jeffrey Glueck as its new CEO. Glueck was previously working at Travelocity as the firms Chief Marketing Officer and had successfully boosted the company’s business to $10.6 billion worldwide. With Glueck moving in to take the position of CEO, Nitin Bhandari, the former CEO of Skyfire will take charge as Skyfire’s chief product officer. Tags:...
Tech Blog (Free subscription) | 06/24/2009
Facebook appears to be moving closer to cashing in on the social gaming phenomenon it has created on its platform and, judging by the numbers being quoted at the second annual Social Gaming Summit, that can’t come soon enough. In a session on Tuesday featuring executives from leading social-gaming publishers, John Pleasants, the new chief executive [...]
Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog (Free subscription) | 06/24/2009
I moderated two panels at the Social Gaming Summit 2009 today. The first was about building social games at scale and featured the CEOs/COOs of the top three social game companies; Mark Pincus of Zynga, John Pleasants of Playdom and Sebastien de Halleux of Playfish. Gamasutra has an excellent writeup of the panel. Inside Social Games also [...]
VentureBeat (Free subscription) | 06/23/2009
Sooner or later, if you make gangster games, things are bound to get nasty. Zynga has filed a lawsuit against its social gaming rival Playdom, which allegedly is misleading consumers in an ad in which it entices Zynga’s Mafia Wars customers to play Playdom’s own mob-related game, Mobsters. Both are extremely popular games. Zynga’s has 2.5 million players on Facebook. We haven’t...
startupspark.com (Free subscription) | 06/22/2009
John Pleasants, formerly of Electronic Arts, has been named the CEO of Playdom — one of the hottest online startup companies in existence. The makers of the famous “Mobsters” game, Playdom is regarded as the quickest growing social gaming company in the world. While with Electronic Arts, Pleasants was the former President, COO and Global Publishing. Said [...] Post from: Startup Spark...
VentureBeat (Free subscription) | 06/20/2009
The game industry took notice yesterday when John Pleasants left the No. 2 job at Electronic Arts to join a small social gaming startup, Playdom. It seemed to signal a brave new world where social game startups and iPhone game companies were actually more attractive places for top executives than the biggest video game companies. But that’s an interpretation that apparently makes some at EA say...
Joystiq (Free subscription) | 06/19/2009
Right before hitting the ol' dusty trail for Playdom , now ex-EA COO John Pleasants sat down with Reuters for an interview all about the future of EA. In it, he speaks to the multifaceted future of EA (especially with regards to business models), as well as the importance of EA's current "investor mode," saying the company will announce new deals with various social networking services "some...
The Social Times (Free subscription) | 06/19/2009
Playdom has added a new executive to its core team. The social game development company announced this week that John Pleasants is Playdom’s new CEO. Coming from Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA), Pleasants has a wealth of experience in the gaming industry, and has been brought on board in part to help Playdom achieve [...]
Silicon Alley Insider (Free subscription) | 06/19/2009
Social gaming startup Playdom has poached EA's COO John Pleasants and made him CEO. Mark Pincus's social gaming startup Zynga gets a lot of press for its projected $100 million 2009 revenues , but Playdom is the other startup in the rapidly developing space you have to know, too. Industry sources keep telling us it's profitable and PaidContent says Playdom sells $10 million worth of virtual goods...
Inside Mac Games (Free subscription) | 06/19/2009
June 19, 2009 6:00 AM VentureBeat has posted a new interview with Electronic Arts COO John Pleasants. In the interview the executive discusses a variety of topics including the shift from traditional game distribution to online models, how the idea of games as services will lower costs, and the company's future plans. VB: How do you look at this whole shift from software to Internet services? Everyone...
Startup Meme (Free subscription) | 06/19/2009
Playdom , the social gaming startup has got a big boost as it hired EA’s COO John Pleasants as its CEO. He would replace Playdom’s current CEO, Dan Yue who is also the startups co-founder and will switch his position as its chief product officer. The social gaming has made a big jump in the recent past and the company itself has divided its team into two that will individually develop...
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