Slide, bought by Google for roughly $228 million about a year ago, is being disbanded. Economically it’s a pretty interested case study for the lifecycle of a social game company (or any small tech startup, really) that gets acquired and then does poorly. One could argue that Slide actually got acquired when it was on the downswing already – it was valued at $500 million in 2008, reportedly. But seeing as the company is about to be abandoned, Google probably sees that $228 million as a high price for a year of access to talent and a half million monthly active users. Slide hasn’t released a hit game since SuperPoke Pets in 2008, but the game still has over 100,000 monthly active users, and they are more than a little upset about Google’s abandonment of the game.
Apparently Slide had great engagement numbers, because the protest has been quite vocal for a mid-sized game. One (relatively unheard of) news outlet ran a headline that it was upsetting people with disabilities because of how much that category of people enjoys the game. But reputable sources have picked up the story as well, and some note the possibility of a class action lawsuit against google, though I imagine that observation is simply from reading the comments in the Techcrunch article where the story first appeared.
Why is this interesting? Well, it’s the most vocal response to a game going under we have seen, and its also possibly the first time where a game is going completely defunct without (currently) any way for the players to move their stored value in the game to another game. Other companies have closed social games before, but usually that’s in the context of a dying game where the developer is moving resources to a new project – and with it, they hope to move the players by offering to give players who switch a heavy bonus for their loyalty. Slide, however, is being completely disbanded, and Google doesn’t seem to have an obvious solution for how to deal with the disgruntled players – they haven’t launched any sort of liquid credits system on their own game platform yet, so they can’t just give the players some bonus on those credits. Legally, I’m sure Slide/Google has no obligation to do anything – I haven’t read their terms of use, but I’m sure they state what most games state, which is that all goods remain the property of the company. But as the free market has noticed in this situation, it’s not always usually ever best to enforce your legal rights to the fullest extent against your valued customers.
What really caught my attention about this story was how the debate has been framed – All Things Digital starts their coverage of the news with the question of whether a virtual good is like a halloween costume, where the consumer has an understanding that the goods aren’t going to hold their value. Social game items are hardly the first virtual goods, but they may indeed be the least liquid and hardest to price – even if your halloween costume is topical, you still have it after halloween is over, and you still have that shot of selling your Sarah Palin costume to the person throwing a 2011 themed Halloween party in 10 years. Once you buy that gold gun in a social game, unless the game has a trading market (which few do at this point), you are stuck with it until the game closes. I say goods from social games are hard to price because, unlike virtual goods in other contexts, you don’t really know how long the status you are purchasing will last. For example, if I buy a virtual good over xbox live for a console game, I have a rough idea of the lifecycle I should expect – I know whether a new game has been announced, I know how long the game has been out and how many people are playing it, and I know the history of the developer to some extent. It’s basic free market price movement – But with a smaller social game company (Slide’s close was obviously more of a surprise, but one could imagine the same happening with a smaller dev) that sort of information just isn’t out there to base a pricing decision on.
Social games simply don’t have a history as an industry to see this kind of pricing, but they will get there. Slide’s failure is likely burned into the minds of the disgruntled SuperPoke players, who I imagine will be more skeptical of the companies they “invest” their money in. Everybody who has heard the story is likely to make a similar analysis and eventually the market for virtual goods in social games may see slower growth if consumers become wary of making a significant capital investment in a game that may go under at any moment. Companies could be more transparent upfront about the fact that the social goods are the sole property of the company, and that you are just leasing them, something typically buried in the terms of use anyway, but a better approach is probably just to make sure you have some method of transitioning users to other games – are you really telling me no company would be interested in offering SuperPoke players free in-game items to get them into their game? These sound like some pretty solid users to have on your game – hell, I’d be surprised if Google couldn’t make money by offering to sell an interstitial with a cross-promotion to a Zynga game at this point.
danielmarkmiller.net 
I am one of the many disgruntled SPP users. I have a question that I would love an answer to and have not been able to get as response from Google. Today they offered us SPP Lite by using Adobe Air. All this does is allows us to save a supposedly Live Picture of a habitat we have decorated in the game. We cannot use any of the items, just look at them. My question is why cant they make a downloadable version, where we download our own accounts, our own inventories and are still able to decorate? For a fee! We would gladly PAY to be able to continue to use the items we have spent so much money gathering over the past few years. SPP allows creativity unlike any other game. Grant it, I do not know what has to go into making such a thing happen, thats why I am asking. Is it feasible for them to do this for us? Again, for a fee! I looked at the more advanced Adobe programs – why couldnt one of those allows us to do this? What on earth will it take to be able to continue to use our items? By the way, when they sold these Gold items, say they sold a Masterpiece for $50 one day, thousands of them sold out in less than 2 minutes. The majority of people that bought them up would resell them in the game forum for $300 each!!!! If we bought these items and were allowed to resell them via Paypal thru the game forum, doesn’t that mean we really do own them? Any other game I know of has strict rules against reselling items – there were and still are Paypal room after Paypal room in that game – still selling and buying going on. If they allowed that, encouraged it by having the Forums in their game, doesn’t that mean we do in fact own them and should be able to keep use of them? Just asking, would love some serious answers.
I happen to be one of the disgruntled SPP players., and I do thank you for your article and comments. Yes, we are devoted to the game and would love nothing else if it could be picked up by another gaming site, allowing us to continue to play the game. And although there is a fairly new company, GoPlay, that has approached Google about doing this, as of right now, there has been no response from Google. I, and a lot of others SPPers, are of the opinion that Google will not let ANYONE have this company because, well, they’re Google and can pretty much do whatever they feel like doing and too bad for those they step on to get to where the want to go.
We have offered several suggestions to Slide/Google to try and keep our game going, including a monthly “subscription fee”. We’ve even suggested that they move it to Google+ and we would follow it! But as far as offering anything else in the way of “perks” or “in kind” credits for another game, I think the majority of us would turn it down or not use it. We don’t want another game – we want our game to stay!I think it needs to be brought out that before Google had purchased Slide, the purchase of gold items must have been relativity high. I personally have spent WELL OVER a thousand dollars during my 2 years of playing this game! And I know a lot of people spent quite a bit more than I did on a daily/weekly/biweekly/monthly basis. Yes, Slide did have problems with servers, “glitches”, etc. But I do believe part of that was because they were trying to do too much too quickly (at the request of their players) and creating problems for all. However, being the loyal players we are, most of us waited for the problems to be fixed so we could continue to play (and buy!).
I think most of us were thrilled when we first heard that Google was going to be purchasing Slide. “Finally, maybe all of these problems will be less and less as Google gets involved!” Boy, were we ever led down the proverbial creek without a paddle! All Google wanted were the developers, programmers and Max Levchin to help with Google+. This past June, we were told that Slide would be cutting back on the game, but we would still be able to play. It had been decided that the game had grown to the point that it could be a “community based” game; there would be no more new items created (coin or gold) as of July 1st, but “remaining gold items will be available to purchase through the month of July” (“make sure we get every possible penny we can from them!”). I saw that as a red flag, but we kept being assured that the game would still be available to play for the “foreseeable future” (another red flag). At this point, I believe a lot of people started leaving the game. Apparently their eyes saw the “foreseeable future” as not very foreseeable at all! As for those of us that stayed, well, I don’t think we were being gullible, I think we were just being hopeful – hopeful that SPP/Slide/Google was telling us the truth – that the game WOULD continue on. Unfortunately, we were all duped big time!
Our love of this game covers many aspects. Many of us have formed worldwide friendships that transcend the game. We have built strong relationships with others that we would never have met if not for this game. We have celebrated happy times with each other, as well as sad times. We have laughed and cried with each other. And yes, we love our little pixelated pets. . The developers and game itself created and perpetrated these relationships. We are not referred to as “gamers” or “players”, we are referred to as “friends”.
Hopefully this gives you (and other non-“friends” of SPP) a little better understanding of where we re coming from and what our mission is – simply put, it is to SAVE OUR GAME. Google is like the “schoolyard bully” — it takes and does whatever it wants without any regard to the feelings of others. And if they get caught somewhere down the road, well, they just pay the consequences ($$$) and move on to their next desired company, or developer, or programmer, or big name techie.
We may be small, but we have something that Google doesn’t — heart!
I am one of the disabled players of SuperPoke Pets. I am wheelchair bound and only leave my home to go to Doctor appointments. I can’t participate in the real world activities that I wish I could.
I am upset about SPP’s upcoming demise. It does state in the terms of service that the company still owns the items and I did tell myself that I was just borrowing or ‘leasing’ items. I still don’t understand why SPP encouraged players to sell gold thru Paypal at a profit to the player. No other social game allows that. In fact, I think the rest of the social games will delete your account in said game if they catch you doing that.
I don’t know what to make of this SPP Lite that was released yesterday. It doesn’t allow me to decorate my habitats after the full version of the game is gone next year. Kinda feels to me like Google is trying to avoid the Class Action Lawsuit underway by letting you enjoy those animated gold items in a very limited capacity while still killing the rest of the game.
I could spend all day playing SPP if I wanted to. I was redocorating not just looking at pictures of my stuff. SPP Lite is a JOKE! SPP has provided me with art therapy, social contact and just plain distraction from my health problems.
And that comparison to a Halloween costume offended me. Virtual goods are their own little monster and this experience will make me think twice about ever spending real money on virtual items again.
I wish Google would reconsider their decision and offer SPP on Google+. Playing a social game is the only reason I was going to try out Google+. Now their is no reason for me to leave Facebook. And I have read that SPP’s coding is incompatible with Google+. Well, if that is the case, just redirect us back to SPP.Com after we log into Google+. Their are other social games I play that have a Facebook connection and an offsite connection of their own. why can’t Google do that?
Maybe Google can refine SPP Lite? I would pay for a PC version of the game with all the coin items and my Pet. I would pay a monthly fee to be able to continue to play SPP.
This is sad.
SuperPoke Pets is a cute, children friendly game that deserved better.
I was also confused by “SPP Lite”. I have several ‘lite’ (free versions of) game apps on my iPhone, and they enable me to keep score and move myself around the game screen. The ‘full’ (available for a price) versions go a few steps further, providing more features and often the ability to play with others.
“SPP Lite” is nothing like that. We’ve been given the means to download our habitats as they are and play with our own pets, uncompetitively. Basically, Slide/Google is providing us with the means to download ‘captures’ of our game screens into folders, resulting in nothing more than an animated snapshot album. Calling this “SPP Lite” is beginning to confuse people. Many are under the impression they’ll be still be able to visit their friends pets, level up, etc. This is not the case. All we’ll be able to do is LOOK at our items. This does, however, solve Slide/Google’s dilemma concerning the virtual ‘gold’ items many of us have purchased with real cash. Allowing us to download them into files we can keep means the items will, in fact, remain ours even though we won’t be able to do anything with those items but look at them. And, for the record, this will give less credibility to any class-action lawsuit being considered. In fact, there probably is no longer any basis for a class-action lawsuit because it can no longer be claimed that Slide/Google will be ‘taking back’ everything we paid for.
I was not expecting the social aspects of the game to continue once it’s taken offline in March, but I WAS hoping that Slide/Google would devise a way for us to download all of our individual items and habitats into a flash file, thereby giving us the option to decorate/redecorate our habitats at will for pleasure’s sake alone. Unfortunately that’s something Slide/Google isn’t willing to do.
Shari has given an eloquent and comprehensive view of the game. I can only add to it one personal view.
A friend tried for over a year to get me to try this game. I finally gave in, and immediately wished I had done so earlier. I have never played an online that gave me so much personal satisfaction as Super Poke Pets. From the delightful animations to the fun in figuring out how to decorate the habitats and trying to earn enough coins to “buy” the items I wanted, it was fun with a payoff — the satisfaction of having a pleasing and sometimes even beautiful habitat. And because of the self-pacing of this game, it was much more relaxing than the shoot-em-up or oh-my-crops-are-gonna-die types of games. It became a great way to unwind before bed.
But best of all, if I had to go do the other things that occupy my life — work, family, social functions, et al. — I could stop playing at any time, and come back to it exactly as I had left it. The only exception was shopping night, when new items and “rare” items were released. If you weren’t there right then, you could miss out on the most desirable items. Shopping night became even more fun after I joined a club. Not only did I have more friends to play with, I had people from all over the world to interact with. More play dates meant more coins, but it went so much further than that. Through interacting online, we came to know and care about each other. We celebrated happy times, and supported and commiserated through sad and difficult times, sometimes even arranging to help outside of the virtual world.
For me personally, this meant a lot, especially since I now have a triple whammy of arthritis, fibromyalgia, and clinical depression that are keeping me physically more homebound that I want. Even when I had to turn down outside social interactions because of pain and fatigue, I could still interact with people through SPP. Better still, I found myself using less pain medication thanks to the distraction that SPP provided.
You want a social game? SPP is, in the truest sense of the word, a SOCIAL game. Because of SPP, I have formed friendships outside of the game that have carried over onto other social media and, in a couple of cases, outside of the virtual world. Google could have done so much to help grow Google+ by keeping and investing in this game. Instead, Google now has a significant group of people who will have nothing to do with Google+ thanks to this travesty. OK, maybe they don’t need us. But from what I understand, it’s not doing much better than their last venture into social media. They certainly could have used the players from this incredibly social game to spark growth in their larger product. Instead, they’ve chosen to alienate a formidable and vocal group of people. What this group is doing to try to save SPP will help define the kind of commitment companies need to make when they create such a social network through the use of virtual goods and services.
Barbara, very well stated. We ARE vocal and hopefully formidable. IF I were Google, I would be hoping to find a group like us – loyal, committed, willing to fight for what we want and believe in, and willing to spend money to keep it going!
Hey Google, are you listening yet?
What most articles seem to overlook is we aren’t just referring to a game here, but a community.
A community of players who, like neighbors in a development, have come to know each other. Most of us never met each other in person or if you prefer in real life, our only connection is on line through a game we all love.
What made SPP special? There was no pressure to play SPP… your animal doesn’t die like on other social type on line games. If you went on vacation, your pet was lonely, but when you came home it was still there… for many players that was a huge bonus. I played a game for years where if you couldn’t get on line for a few weeks, if your computer crashed and you had to wait months to get it fixed, or if you ended up working too many hours to play, when you returned to the game all of your “animals” were gone, they were “rescued” by other players or they died… that creates pressure.. When the game is set up like that you have to play, you don’t have the option, if you don’t play, you lose what you built…. SPP gave players the freedom of knowing you could be interrupted by real life and still be able to return to your pet, and it would be the same as when you left it.
That is part of why it appeals to children, teens and adults. It is one of the only, it not the only game on line, to have this stress-free playing style…
SPP created a community… with clubs, forums, and more, When things went wrong… you had friends to help pull you through. When a friend on SPP passed away in real life, the community pulled together to honor the player… to remember her.
In real life people own pets… dogs, cats, bunnies, and other animals… you take care of them, feed them, play with them, clean them…. The pets on SPP were similar… with out the restriction of a NO PET rule as some communities and apartments have … and you don’t have to pay hundreds in vet bills, or clean up real life messes left by your pet… We took care of our pet as you take care of your pet in real life… many of the SPP players had pets on SPP that were named for pets at home or pets that had departed our earth… what a fantastic way to remember a beloved pet…
Maybe the numbers of players is down – but once it was announced that SPP was closing many of my friends stopped playing. They went searching for another venue, after all this one was gone.
In one other article the author criticized players of SPP for not spending money. Maybe most don’t realize that that is no longer an option for SPP players. There are no items to purchase and no way to acquire them through SPP itself, so they buy from other players instead… No one seems to realize that many players ARE still spending real life money on this game… but that money isn’t going to a huge corporation like Google, or a small developer like Slide use to be, but to other players… Those who invested a lot of real money in this game are selling their items to recoup some of their investment – and players who dreamed of owning the items and couldn’t afford the original prices are grabbing the lower priced items now… not with virtual coins but with hard earned dollars through sites like paypal…
Someone please recognize a community. Even if our numbers are down to 100,000 players… that is a larger community than most housing developments will ever hold… A community of people brought together by a game, who are searching for a way to stay friends, who long to keep pets they have grown to love, and in any world that is not a “wrong” attitude, it is a healthy one…
A community that rejoices with each other over successes and cries over loss… who reaches out in friendship and that cares for real about the player, the person behind the pet, the people who have real life problems and triumphs.
A community, united and strong, and fighting to keep their world alive…
I’m another of those disgruntled SPP players too, more than anything, I feel angry and dissapointed, SLIDE was stupid ya know? They created a huge family of games, but they always tought that people will find them like we find SPP.
I’m talking about:
-Superpoke! (this was his first hit, even was featured in the prime time tv show “The big bang theory”)
-Superpoke! PETS (for what lots of people are really fighting for)
-SPP! Topfish (damn cute fishies, but zero advertsing, abandoned by slide since almost the very begining)
-SPP! Ranch (I dare to say, this was his second hit, but again, ZERO ADVERTISING. damn cute animals that you could feed, raise and release for coins and XP, same formula for topfish)
-Superpocus Academy of Magic *beta* (This project, again, had great potential, to be launched even as an MMORPG, but they lack ov vision did this a beta only, with much future now going to be dead, and slide gave very few attention to it)
What’s my point? SLIDE really create a great family of games, but they NEVER EVER invested in advertising, I saw thousands of times “Join farmville where bla bla” “Happy Aquarium JOIN US” SLide never did that. They always thrust that people will find their games like we did on SPP!, they started so well with SPP! RANCH, and guess what, in all the other games (at least for topfish and ranch) they released GOLD ITEMS. Gold items also were sold out fastly on ranch, people was buying and playing, suddenly, they stopped releasing items with no explanatin, since january 2010, Ranch was abandoned with new items, but people was still playing and playing because of their collections, peacocks, paradise birds, unicorns, collections of bananas, cranberry jams, honey jars, teacups… they had vision, they created something good finally after pets, but they never put the effort to promote their products, I found ranch first, then topfish, and later superpocus.
Google is a huge monster, and I agree with Sherry, we tought that google will bring a new glory to this games, but now we realize that in it’s thirst of $$$$ we, the SPP’ers, are being treated like trash, they don’t consider the feelings of the stories behind each little pet puppy or panda, they don’t care of how many people connected via ranching’, or what we saw on our fish tank, they don’t have heart like Sherry said, but we do, and for me, I lost my faith on the internet, and hope that someday, someone bigger than google appears and smash them like we’re being smashed, because they sucked all the money of players, and they’re not having anything back, I never spent on the games, just because I was unable to pay with my card, but many friends did, and thousands of it, money money money!
I’m sure that if google saw that ppl will spend gold again, we will be back on action, but I also think, that google is a big stupid monster.
Saludos desde mexico, y si me equivoque en algo en mi redaccion, los invito a que me contesten en español.
Thanks so much for all the comments! Clearly there is a lot of depth behind this story that isn’t being reported. I’m gonna look into SPP Lite and possibly post again on the whole thing as events unfold. A bunch of you got here from Facebook – is there a forum there or elsewhere where SPP players chat about this? I tried to make a pet today and got distracted by clicking and reading the Virtual Goods Agreement (yeah… that’s when you know you are a legal nerd), which, oddly enough, actually deleted all my progress in signup so I was temporarily put-off from the process – but I’ll try again 🙂
http://www.facebook.com/groups/SPPAwesomePlayers/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/spplikeitusedtobe/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/263412513691638/
for Dan M.
Google’s rash decision to close the hugely popular Superpoke Pets within 6 months will not help gain users for Google+.As a result many people are boycotting all Google products. There were at one point, many millions of daily users, no doubt they would come flooding back, if Google put Superpoke Pets onto it’s own platform and made the effort to publicise it.
Superpoke Pets is the only truly family friendly game on the web with members of all ages and income groups.
There are high flying workers who use the site to relax and make friends, also many people with large disposable income who love buying gold. People have spent thousands of dollars per pet over the last three years. It seems crazy to close down a successful game that is already set up and working.
So many housebound people play too, from seniors to war veterans. Terminally ill and disabled people enjoy the game. So do people with a variety of health issues, emotional and physical. What alternative is there for them?. They don’t want fast moving teenage style games. Superpoke members love the creative and social aspects most of all.
Google are missing out on a really big opportunity to get people to use Google+ instead of Facebook. I suggest Google have a rethink on this matter. They should also consider the morality of depriving people of the gold items they bought, after being told the game would keep running. It was stated many times that Superpoke Pets would not be going away.
How about getting as many people as possible to send colourful postcards showing our home region.Then put a message on the back saying PLEASE SAVE SUPERPOKE PETS.
We need to get as many people as possible to join in. I think a few sacks full of postcards from all over the world, would make Google understand better than any number of emails and letters.It doesn’t cost much to buy and send a picture postcard, even if it has to by air mail.
Thank you
Larry Page
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
I LOVE THIS GAME…”SUPERPOKE PETS’! It is the only on-line game i enjoy playing. I play this game daily & actually have &/or play 14 pets daily. It helps me develope my creativity 7 allows me to vent my stress. To simply just be reimburst for money lost is not satisfying to me. Losing my pets is akin to losing a loved 1 as it will create a void in my life. I have created quite a bit of artwork with my pets. My creations, not Googles. Yes, I do know Google created SPP-lite to help with that, but as with Googles actions, I have become filled with mistrust where Google is concerned & feel if I accept that , that Google will proceed with killing our pets. Bottom line is I don’t want my pets killed off. If Google doesn’t want the game, why not sell it or allow another intity to take it over? If Google does succeed in killing our pets, it will only succeed in sinitiating boycots, protests & lawsuits. It will then spread mistrust & ange thruout the communtiy & I, myself will no longer use or play anything associated with Google. Why should we invest in anything Google presents as they may do to it as they have done with SPP? I will inform family friends & any1 who will listen that Google has screwed it’s consumers. I pray google comes to it’s senses & our pets overcome this catastrophe. I pray my pets will have a second chance at life.