PlayerScale

Last updated
PlayerScale
Company type Subsidiary
Industry e-commerce, internet advertising, social gaming
Founded2009 [1] [2]
FounderChris Benjaminsen  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Headquarters
Belmont
,
California [3] [4]
Key people
Jesper Jensen (CEO) [1]
John Vifian (COO) [2]
Chris Benjaminsen (CPO) [2]
Oliver Pedersen (CTO) [2]
ProductsPlayer.IO
Number of employees
14 (January 2013) [3]
Parent Yahoo!
Website gamesnet.yahoo.com

PlayerScale, Inc. is a Belmont-based [3] [4] gaming infrastructure provider. [4] [5] As of 23 May 2013 it operates as a subsidiary of Yahoo!, [2] [4] but it is still functioning as a stand-alone business unit. [6]

Contents

Player.IO

PlayerScale's Player.IO is a platform for online games. [4] It works across consoles, the web, PCs, Macs, and on mobile phones. [3] Player.IO is used on a daily basis by an estimated 150 million people worldwide. [1] [4] It works with various programming languages, including C++, Java, .NET, Objective-C, HTML5, Unity, Flash, iOS and Android. [3] The platform includes payment processing, online chat, analytics, virtual currencies, distributed caching, authentication, social login, leaderboards, localization, among other things. [7]

Everybody Edits

One of the Player.IO showcase projects was the maze-based platform game Everybody Edits. [8] During his lecture at the 2011 Flash Gaming Summit, PlayerScale chief product officer and Player.IO co-founder Benjaminsen revealed that the game, initially published on Flash game portal Newgrounds, had accumulated around 250 thousand registered users in seven months and was making $10,000 monthly. [9]

In a 2011 review for Jay Is Games, John Bardinelli writes: "Experiments in user-created content can go wildly wrong. With Everybody Edits, it happened to go wildly right. [...] The game as a whole doesn't project an air of refined polish, but the core underneath exhibits a lot of creativity and allows players to unleash their imaginations wild on the world in a simple, entertaining sort of way." [10] Phill Cameron of Rock Paper Shotgun : "I keep coming back to Everybody Edits. I think it's because I'm never alone. Just having other people share in your victories, and more importantly, to lessen your defeats, makes for a compelling experience. You're in this together, for better or for worse, and that forces a level of camaraderie. [...] Regardless, you've got one thing in common; you hate whoever created this meticulously designed Rage Machine." [11]

In March 2019, the game suffered a data breach, exposing 871 thousand unique email addresses, alongside usernames and IP addresses. [12] [13] In July 2019, another data breach occurred, leaking 882 unique email addresses, usernames and passwords in plaintext, along with in-game report files. [14] Everybody Edits was eventually shut down on 31 December 2020, [15] the last day Adobe supported its Flash Player. [16] April 2024, the HTML5 remake PixelWalker was released into beta. [17]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Taylor, Colleen (23 May 2013). "Yahoo Acquires Gaming Infrastructure Startup PlayerScale". TechCrunch . Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "PlayerScale, Inc.: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on September 12, 2014. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Takahashi, Dean (28 January 2013). "PlayerScale handles behind-the-scenes infrastructure for games — and 100 million players". VentureBeat . Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Preimesberger, Chris (23 May 2013). "Yahoo Buys Another Startup in Online Gamer PlayerScale". eWeek . Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  5. ↑ "How Yahoo's acquisitions fit into Mayer's master plan". CNN . Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  6. ↑ Williams, Steven; Perez, Madeline (6 July 2014). "Yahoo's acquisition strategy is actually a talent strategy". The Washington Post . Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  7. ↑ Koetsier, John (23 May 2013). "Marissa Mayer and Yahoo are on fire, acquiring gaming company PlayerScale". VentureBeat . Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  8. ↑ "Player.IO Showcase: Games, Projects and more built with Player.IO - Player.IO". PlayerScale. Archived from the original on 20 May 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  9. ↑ Crossley, Rob (28 February 2011). "How I made a $10k-per-month Flash game in my spare time". MCV. Develop . Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  10. ↑ Bardinelli, John (8 March 2011). "Everybody Edits - Walkthrough, Tips, Review". Jay Is Games . Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  11. ↑ Cameron, Phill (5 July 2010). "User Degenerated: Everybody Edits". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  12. ↑ "Have I Been Pwned: Pwned websites". Have I Been Pwned? . 3 April 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  13. ↑ "Everybody Edits lekt gegevens 871.000 spelers" [Everybody Edits leaks data 871,000 players]. Security.nl (in Dutch). 3 April 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  14. ↑ "Data Security Breach 2 - Please Update Your Passwords". 22 July 2019.
  15. ↑ "EE Offline, EEU Opt-In, & Big Changes!". Everybodyedits.com. 26 December 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  16. ↑ "Adobe Flash Player End of Life". Adobe Inc. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  17. ↑ "EE Multiplayer Remake / Game Discussion". Everybodyedits.com. 18 April 2024. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
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