The Walt Disney Company seems to be on a technology spending spree. After acquiring game-making company Tapulous recently, Disney is now in talks to acquire online game developer Playdom Inc. for more than $500 million.
The Wall Street Journal, Disney hopes to use the company’s expertise to compete in the social game sphere, where games developed for multiple players via Facebook and other social networks are becoming more and more popular.
Disney’s familiar brands and characters would be injected to games which will then generate revenue through advertising, virtual game items, and other avenues.
Playdom has been funded by the Walt Disney Company’s venture capital fund, Steamboat Ventures (half of the start-ups funding — $33 million — has come from Steamboat), and Disney has already made a deal with Playdom to develop social games using the ESPN brand.
