Google Buys Slide for $182 Million (or More)
Social game and app developer Slide has been snapped up by Google for $182 million and is preparing to announce the acquisition Friday, according to TechCrunch. Our own sources are confirming the story — but say the price is actually higher.
[Update: The New York Times says the deal was worth around $228 million.]
Slide is one of Facebook’s larger app developers, with 14.7 million monthly active users and a million daily active users. Compared to Playdom’s 40 million MAU and six million DAU, which Disney just picked up for $563 million, it looks like Google paid a high premium.
As usual, though, there’s more to the story. Slide’s numbers were actually much higher earlier this year; in mid-March, it briefly hit 48 million MAU, while it was well over 20 million for most of 2009. The company has proven adept at promotion and virality, which could benefit a new Google social platform; its social gaming portfolio, however, is not as large as others, and it has lower engagement as a result. Still, as games took off on Facebook, it moved past its popular apps, Top Friends and Slide FunSpace, to release games like SuperPocus and SPP Ranch!.
Those new games didn’t significantly change the picture for Slide, and the company has been fairly quiet this year, not releasing any new titles. A hunt for an acquirer could be the reason behind the apparent inaction.
Whether the price is $182 million or somewhat higher, it’s still likely far short of the reported $500 million valuation Slide had at one point, not to mention the $1.5 billion that founder Max Levchin wanted to exceed (to beat PayPal’s 2002 acquisition by eBay).
But this still looks like a pretty good outcome for Slide. It gets a powerful new owner as a possible alternative to Facebook, which has sometimes acted unpredictably for developers, as with its notifications changes earlier this year.
Google also acquired a game company called LabPixies this year — probably for far less — and invested up to $200 million in Zynga.
August 4th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Google Fail!!! With 200 mil in zynga they surely could have gotten better advice than to buy slide for that much
August 6th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
[...] Google ended up not buying Twitter or Yelp last year, or investing in Facebook for that matter, back in 2007, and it hasn’t really spent much money or effort on its social efforts, relatively speaking, until recently with its Zynga stock purchase and acquisition of Slide. [...]
August 15th, 2010 at 10:23 am
[...] did Google buy social application developer Slide? A main line of speculation has been that the company wants to build a social gaming platform, and [...]
August 15th, 2010 at 10:26 am
[...] did Google buy social application developer Slide? A main line of speculation has been that the company wants to build a social gaming platform, and [...]
August 19th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
[...] Case: Google has canceled Google Wave, an ambitious attempt reinvent communication beyond e-mail. Google also purchased Slide, a social apps firm (and major Facebook player), founded by PayPal co-founder (and WePay invesetor) [...]
August 7th, 2011 at 11:01 am
[...] The biggest is Slide, a top social app developer on MySpace and Facebook in past years. After selling to Google for up to $228 million a year ago, some of its executives have taken on expanded roles building Google social products, [...]
August 26th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
[...] being acquired by Google in 2010 for more than $182 million, Slide initially seemed poised for a second wind (or more like a fourth wind) helping to lead the [...]
September 15th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
[...] outfit LabPixies, which was acquired last year. We had hoped to see some games from Slide — which was also bought by Google — on the G+ Games platform, but the studio shut its doors late last [...]