Yahoo's at it again with gaming platform acquisition
The online company, which earlier this week announced it had reached a deal to buy Tumblr, has now purchased PlayerScale.
The online giant has made another acquisition only days after reaching a deal to buy Tumblr. This time around, Yahoo is expanding in the gaming arena with the purchase of PlayerScale.
PlayerScale develops software for cross-plaform gaming that allows publishers and aggregators to quickly scale titles across various platforms. Founded in 2011, the company has over 150 million users worldwide, and it's adding more than 400,000 new users every day.
PlayerScale CEO Jesper Jensen announced the merger Thursday on the company's Web site, saying PlayerScale won't be going anywhere and its gaming infrastructure platform will continue to support its existing products."Our goal has always been to help developers build the best possible games, without having to worry about building and scaling the infrastructure required to operate today's biggest successes," he said. "In working with the folks at Yahoo, it has become clear that we share this passion."
Jensen noted that in the past four months alone, PlayerScale has increased its daily user growth rate by almost 60 percent. With Yahoo's backing, it can release new products and improvements much faster, he said.
Yahoo, meanwhile, gave CNET the following statement:
Today we acquired PlayerScale. The team has built an incredible gaming platform that is used by over 150 million players worldwide. We intend to continue to support and grow PlayerScale's technology, and we look forward to building great new experiences on Yahoo! using the PlayerScale platform.
Yahoo has been on a tear with acquisitions since Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, joined as CEO last July. Mayer has said she wants Yahoo to provide technology for people's daily habits -- such as checking e-mail -- and the company will make whatever acquisitions are needed to do so. Under her leadership, Yahoo has acquired companies such asnews-summarizing app Summly, recommendations engine app Stamped, and mobile video-chat startup OnTheAir. Yahoo's biggest purchase came earlier this week with a $1.1 billion deal for blogging site Tumblr.
It's likely Mayer isn't yet done with her acquisition binge.
Here's PlayerScale's full letter:
Dear customers, partners, and friends,
Today is a great day -- both in our journey with PlayerScale and for users of our Player.IO product. We are happy to announce the next big step toward our goal of building the best possible gaming infrastructure platform: we have been acquired by Yahoo. And don't worry, we're not going anywhere. Our platform will continue to support the same great games that you love playing today...and in fact, it will only get better from here!
Our goal has always been to help developers build the best possible games, without having to worry about building and scaling the infrastructure required to operate today's biggest successes. In working with the folks at Yahoo, it has become clear that we share this passion.
We have spent the past four years growing a three-person startup into a product that powers games played by over 150 million people worldwide and we are adding over 400,000 new users every day. In the last four months alone, we have increased our daily user growth rate by almost 60 percent. With Yahoo's backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than ever before. We will continue to support our existing product and deliver new services to help you grow and manage your success in cross-platform gaming -- whether it's casual, social or mobile.
Today marks a milestone for PlayerScale and I want to sincerely thank the team, our developers and millions of users for the adventure so far and can promise there will be more to come.
- Jesper Jensen
Updated at 8:30 a.m. PT with comment from Yahoo.