ESPN today announced a partnership with Playdom. The two will team up to create social sports games on ESPN.com, moving beyond their simplier Flash-based games on ESPN arcade.
Our deal with Playdom marks ESPN’s first major presence into the social gaming space, said Raphael Poplock, vice president, games and revenue strategy and development for ESPN Digital Media. The sports genre for this category of games has gone virtually untapped thus far, and through this agreement, we have an opportunity to be in front of a highly engaged audience and at the forefront of what is currently the fastest growing games category out there.
“While new brands have been created in the social gaming category, we, at Playdom, believe working with existing intellectual property will become increasingly important over time and are pleased to be incorporating ESPN’s brand and vast library of content into several new social games that are in development, said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom.
The first two social games by Playdom are already in development and are expected to launch Fall 2010.
