
Yahoo Acquires Gaming Infrastructure Startup PlayerScale - zher
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/yahoo-acquires-gaming-platform-startup-playerscale/
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josh2600
I'm trying to find the thread that binds all of this recent M and A activity
together. There have been so many acquisitions of companies big and small,
wrapping your head around Yahoo's global strategy is beginning to look like
Google's.

Does Yahoo have the engineering prowess to pull off this Multi-faceted hydra
strategy? Do they have the management?

It seems news will play a very prominent role in the new Yahoo, but, to my
knowledge, this is the first gaming acquisition in a long time.

Whatever happens, perhaps the most interesting thing is that we're talking
about Yahoo again. 3-5 years ago many of us had written them off, but at least
for the time being they've caught my attention.

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brianbreslin
Only common thread is both target young audiences

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gcb0
CEO bonus is probably tied to "increase 16-24yr old audience by 100%" and she
is doing that as every other yahoo ceo would have.

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PLenz
Man, they are on some buying binge. Unfortunately for them, I don't think it's
possible to buy innovation or relevance. Those things have to come from within
and permeate the entire culture of the firm - and Yahoo just doesn't have it
right now.

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blocke
Companies like Cisco seem built around buying all of their innovation:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_Systems)

They seem to be doing well.

[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/indus...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/industries/209/index.html)

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josh2600
The culture of Cisco M&A is unlike anything seen in Silicon Valley.

Cisco actively encourages senior engineering employees to leave the company,
start new ventures and return as leaders in the M&A process. It's not fair to
compare Yahoo to Cisco when Cisco invests tremendous amounts of effort, time
and money into these ventures to grow and nurture them (recent example:
Meraki) until they can be reabsorbed into the Mothership.

Yahoo on the other hand is buying a bunch of companies that it knows only by
reputation. Yahoo might be successful, but not for the same reasons that Cisco
is successful. It's just a very different culture.

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PLenz
Exactly - some companies can pull off this kind of acquisition. It's entirely
a corporate culture thing.

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freditup
I'm also curious for what Yahoo was going for here. Playerscale (which only
product really so far is Player.io) is actually something I've worked with in
the past. And it's a fairly strong idea - an easy to use but versatile server
platform for multiplayer games (along with client libraries of course). The
only problem was that it wasn't that well executed. Long downtimes for no
explained reason, large-functionality gaps that had to be hacked around,
overly simplified concepts that limit usability, large security holes, etc.

So it will be interesting to see where Yahoo goes with this.

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chrislloyd
Hey! I'd love to talk to you about your experience with Player.io (I'm
building something similar). I couldn't find your email, but mine is in my
profile.

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C1D
I want to see where this is going and try to work out if all these
acquisitions are part of the new yahoo or just some big PR stunt, though
that's very unlikely yahoo has loads of money and they've caugh the attention
of many. If new yahoo is going to actually do something innovative with these
new products I can't wait to see what it's going to be.

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nicholassmith
Seems like Yahoo has decided cash in the bank is pointless, it's an
interesting gamble to take. At the very least there's a lot of conversation
surrounding Yahoo, instead of people claiming their impending death.

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Zimahl
For a company that is in decline a lot of cash in the bank is pointless. Yahoo
was in decline. So you can either have nice balance sheets while others chip
away at your core business or you can spend your money either rebuilding your
core or extending it.

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rocky1138
When I read this I tried searching for PlayerScale on the web. Didn't find
much. Anyone have a link to their website or more info on this company?

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szidev
they're most known for their main product: player.io. here's a link to that:
<http://playerio.com/>

