Thursday, July 8, 2010

Metaplace Acquired by Playdom

San Diego-based Metaplace, the virtual worlds software firm started by Raph Koster and John Donham, has been acquired by social gaming firm Playdom, Playdom said Thursday afternoon. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Koster and Donham were behind Sony Online Entertainment's Everquest II and Star Wars Galaxies titles. Playdom said that Donham will continue to run an office in San Diego, with Jason Hable, the firm's VP of Business Operations, moving to MOuntain View. Metaplace was backed by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Crescendo Ventures and Charles River Ventures. The buy comes seven months after Metaplace told its users it would shut down its virtual world service, because the site was "not gaining enough traction to be a viable product."