迪士尼并购社交游戏开发商playdom的传言已经沸沸扬扬。techcrunch就爆料出此次并购的总额将超过6亿美元。playdom目前全球拥有4000万的月活跃用户，首席执行官是来自电子艺界的John Pleasants。Neil Vidyarthi认为迪士尼并购playdom至少存在三大考量。

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其一，社交游戏产业意味着新的营收渠道。在社交游戏如火如荼的现在，playdom从facebook和myspace获得了大量的用户和收益，并且该收益随着行业的发展就逐步扩大。

其二，品牌兼容性。playdom在社交游戏开发的经验将帮助迪士尼进一步开拓旗下电影在游戏领域的影响力，使得整个产业链更加完整。

其三，强大的研发能力。今年playdom连续进行了并购，这些并购来的公司和技术实力将进一步加快迪士尼在网页发展方面的实力。

Reports are flying in this week that Disney is in late stage talks to buy Playdom for $600 million.  The rumors are strongly confirmed by TechCrunch sources and seem to have some weight.  What would Disney have to gain by acquiring a company like Playdom?  A lot.  Playdom touches 40,000,000 MAUs and produces great games like Wild Ones.  The company has strong management in its ex-EA CEO John Pleasants and CFO Christa Quarles.  I take a look at some of the reasons they would be interested.

Social Gaming = Additional Revenue

The obvious first reason is that every large company in the digital space has an eye on the rapidly growing social games industry.  The companies are all earning strong revenues, and companies with strong management like Playdom are poised to continue to grow revenues as the market further expands into social networks outside of Facebook and MySpace.  From a numbers perspective I’m sure that Playdom is making a pretty appealing case in the board room, and are probably glossing over the fact that Facebook application growth numbers have been down in the last 6 months.

Brand Compatibility

Another reason is the matching of styles.  Playdom’s games have a strong aesthetic appeal and high production values.  When I look at a game like Wild Ones it’s not really a stretch to imagine

those characters being some Disney licensed characters, maybe the Rescue Rangers, and instead of throwing bombs the items would of course be vegetables and nuts.  That said, the game could have massive appeal and work to boost the strength of a Disney brand.

Strong Web Development Capabilities

Finally, Playdom has a strong development team as they have been acquiring companies like Merscom Games, Three Melons and more.  High quality web developers could be useful to Disney in other ways, but if Playdom is smart they will try to do what Playfish did at EA and secure a hands-off deal where the parent company doesn’t mess around too much with the existing formula.  What do you think of the potential partnership?