The talks are (mostly) over and it is now confirmed that Disney is buying Playdom valued at $763.2 million (US).

According to the New York Times, Walt Disney Company will pay $563.2 million and $200 million more later if Playdom “achieves growth thresholds that were not made public.”

As part of the deal, Playdom Chief Executive John Pleasants become a Disney Executive Vice President, reporting to Disney’s Interactive Media Group.

This also coincides with…

And you thought Disney was done when it started the multi-billion dollar acquisition of Marvel.

Less than a week after that announcement, Disney then announced that it has agreed to purchase Wideload Games, makers of Stubbs the Zombie, Hail to the Chimp and Texas Cheat’ Em.

With Take Two’s board rejecting EA’s takeover offer, EA has softened its stand, though only a bit. It had previously set April 11, 2008, as the deadline but has deferred it by a week and reset it to April 18, 2008. Despite the extension, it still is keen to close the deal before the April more »

The board of directors of Take-Two has once again dismissed EA’s offer and termed it “inadequate in multiple respects.” But it remains open to other possibilities like a merger with a third party or EA. It has advised the company’s shareholders not to offer their shares to EA.

The board has ruled out the possibility of any mergers before the release of GTA IV (April 29, 2008). However, before the game’s release, it is ready to…

While EA’s takeover bid for Take-Two has hogged all the limelight for the past week, there is finally some other big news concerning another major deal. According to a report from Bloomberg, an investor has sued Activision as it is disgruntled with the terms of the publisher’s merger with Vivendi SA. The investor, Michigan-based Employees’ Retirement System, alleges that the company’s management failed to…

On January 30, 2008, Microsoft offered Yahoo Inc. $44.6 billion to merge both internet companies according to a story published in Reuters.

By merging, the businesses will be able to compete with the current popular web company Google Inc. According to Game Daily writer James Brightman, this would be the biggest merger since Time Warner Cable and America Online in 2000.

Apparently, Microsoft offered Yahoo $31 per share in cash and stock, which means that in return, Yahoo would agree to allow Microsoft to dominate the banner ads often used by corporate brand advertisements, which are known to attract up to 500 million visitors to the site. Yahoo and Microsoft are popularly used for their headline and financial news, sports and entertainment; but as far as a search engine, more people use Google.

The $18.8 billion deal to combine Activision and Vivendi Games will see the creation of a new company, Activision Blizzard, which is expected to be the world’s largest and most profitable pure-play video game publisher. Vivendi, which is going to be the majority stakeholder in the new company, has taken a major step towards the more »