RockYou was a company that developed widgets for MySpace and implemented applications for various social networks and Facebook. Since 2014, it has engaged primarily in the purchases of rights to classic video games; it incorporates in-game ads and re-distributes the games.[1]
Based in San Francisco, California, RockYou was founded in 2005 by Lance Tokuda and Jia Shen. The company's first product, a slideshow service, was designed to work as an application widget. Later applications included various forms of voice mail, text and photo stylization, and games. As of December 2007, it was the most successful widget maker for the Facebook platform in terms of total installations.[citation needed]
In May 2007, RockYou was one of the companies invited to participate in F8, the event at which Facebook announced an open platform allowing third parties to develop and operate their own software applications on the Facebook website. Applications made for Facebook include Super Wall,[2] "Hug Me", Likeness, Vampires, Slideshows, Birthdays, MyGifts, and Emote, among others.[3]
In December 2009, RockYou experienced a data breach resulting in the exposure of over 32 million user accounts. This resulted from storing user data in an unencrypted database (including user passwords in plain text instead of using a cryptographic hash) and not patching a ten-year-old SQL vulnerability. RockYou failed to provide a notification of the breach to users and miscommunicated the extent of the breach.[4]
In October 2010, the company completed major layoffs.[5] In November 2010, the company's founder and CEO, Lance Tokuda, stepped down from his position as CEO[6] and was later replaced by Lisa Marino in April 2011.[7]
In 2010, RockYou announced the acquisitions of two game development studios, TirNua[8] and Playdemic,[9] as well as development agreements for two new games from John Romero's social game studio Loot Drop.[10] Playdemic's first game, Gourmet Ranch, was nominated in February 2011 for a Mochi Award for Best Social Game. RockYou's investors include SoftBank,[11]Sequoia Capital,[12] Lightspeed Venture Partners,[13] Partech International,[13] and DCM.[13]
In 2011, the company agreed to undergo two independent security audits to settle a proposed class action in California over the 2009 data breach that exposed millions of passwords and email addresses.[14]
In 2012, the company settled Federal Trade Commission charges. The settlement barred future deceptive claims by the company regarding privacy and data security, required it to implement and maintain a data security program, barred future violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule, and required it to pay a $250,000 civil penalty to settle the COPPA charges.[15]
On June 13, 2012, RockYou acquired Bingo developer Ryzing[16] and relocated its headquarters to San Francisco, California.[17] In August 2012, RockYou launched The Walking Dead Social Game based on AMC's hit series of the same name.[18] In April 2014, RockYou purchased three Playdom social games from Disney: Gardens of Time, Words of Wonder, and City Girl, and announced it was licensing Army Attack, Crazy Penguin Wars, Millionaire City, and Zombie Lane from Digital Chocolate.[19]
In 2015, RockYou purchased The Godfather: Five Families, Kingdoms of Camelot, Edgeworld, Glory of Rome, and Dragons of Atlantis from Kabam.
In 2016, RockYou acquired War of Nations from GREE.
In 2019, RockYou closed down its popular but money-losing PurePlay Poker Game without notice. Shortly after, the RockYou corporate website went dark.
In February 2019, after several Facebook posts promoting "exciting news" and a plan to upgrade servers, RockYou announced the closure of The Godfather: Five Families. Players were given 5 days' notice.
On February 13, 2019, RockYou filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.[20]
Data breach
In December 2009, the company experienced a data breach resulting in the exposure of over 32 million user accounts. The company used an unencrypted database to store user account data, including plaintext passwords (as opposed to password hashes) for its service, as well as passwords to connected accounts at partner sites (including Facebook, Myspace, and webmail services). RockYou would also e-mail the password unencrypted to the user during account recovery. They also did not allow using special characters in the passwords. The hacker used a 10-year-old SQL vulnerability to gain access to the database. The company took days to notify users after the incident, and initially incorrectly reported that the breach only affected older applications when it actually affected all RockYou users.[4]
The full list of passwords exposed as a result of the breach is available in Kali Linux, and has been since its launch in 2013. Due to its easy attainability and comprehensive length, it is commonly used in dictionary attacks.[21]
Friendster is a social network originally based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003. Before Friendster was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands and hobbies. Users could share videos, photos, messages, and comments with other members via profiles and networks. It is considered one of the original social networks.
Digital Chocolate, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher headquartered in San Mateo, California. It was founded in 2003 by Trip Hawkins, the founder of video game companies Electronic Arts and The 3DO Company. The company focused on developing games for Java ME-based mobile phones, iOS, and Microsoft Windows, and made some non-entertainment titles. Its marketing motto was Seize the minute.
Meebo was an instant messaging and social networking service provider. It was founded in September 2005 by Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry, and was based in Mountain View, California. Initially the company offered a web-based instant messenger service, extending its offer in more general online chat and even social networking directions. In June 2012, Google acquired Meebo to merge the company's staff with the Google+ developers team.
hi5 is an American social networking service based in San Francisco, California. It is owned by The Meet Group.
Tagged is a social discovery website based in San Francisco, California, founded in 2004. It allows members to browse the profiles of any other members, and share tags and virtual gifts. Tagged claims it has 300 million members as of 2014. As of September 2011, Quantcast estimates Tagged monthly unique users at 5.9 million in the United States, and 18.6 million globally. Michael Arrington wrote in April 2011 that Tagged is most notable for the ability to grow profitably during the era of Facebook.
Flektor was a web application that allowed users the ability to create and “mashup” their own content and share it via email, on social networking websites MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Digg, eBay or on personal blogs. The company’s website (Flektor.com) launched on April 2, 2007 and over 40,000 people began utilizing its features just one month later. Flektor closed down in January 2009.
(Lil) Green Patch was a Facebook application developed by Ashish Dixit and David King that simulated a small garden on a Facebook user's profile. By tending their and their friends' gardens, the Facebook users were able to raise money for The Nature Conservancy to save the rainforest. In September 2008, it was rated as the number one application on Facebook, ahead of Texas HoldEm Poker. In April 2009, it had slid to a sixth-place ranking.
Zynga Inc. is an American developer and publisher running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games".
Playdom was an online social network game developer popular on Facebook, Google+ and Myspace. The company was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area by University of California, Berkeley graduates Ling Xiao and Chris Wang and Swarthmore College graduate Dan Yue. In 2009, the market for games played on social networking sites was valued at $300 million, consisting mostly of online sales of virtual goods.
OMGPop, stylized as OMGPOP and formerly known as i'minlikewithyou or iilwy, was an independent flash game studio. In 2013, it was purchased by Zynga Inc.
A social network game is a type of online game that is played through social networks or social media. They typically feature gamification systems with multiplayer gameplay mechanics. Social network games were originally implemented as browser games. As mobile gaming took off, the games moved to mobile as well. While they share many aspects of traditional video games, social network games often employ additional ones that make them distinct. Traditionally they are oriented to be social games and casual games.
Disqus is an American blog comment hosting service for websites and online communities that use a networked platform. The company's platform includes various features, such as social integration, social networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools, analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting. It was founded in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan as a Y Combinator startup.
Kabam is a Canadian video game developer and publisher founded in 2006 and headquartered in Vancouver, with offices in Montreal, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas. The company develops and publishes massively multiplayer social games such as Marvel Contest of Champions and Transformers: Forged to Fight for mobile devices. Before expanding into gaming, Kabam established itself as a social applications developer with focusing on entertainment and sports.
i-Jet Media is a Russian distribution network and publisher of social games on web portals and social networks. It was founded in 2005 and published its first game, Maffia News, in 2007. The company has foreign offices in Silicon Valley, United States and Beijing, China.
Kixeye is a video game company founded in July 2007 and headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The company creates, develops and publishes massively multiplayer online real-time strategy games (MMORTS) for PC and mobile devices. Kixeye gained popularity as a pioneer in midcore action games featuring real-time combat on the social networking website Facebook. Following their initial launch, Kixeye's games generated twenty times more revenue per daily active user than other social games, retaining active users five times longer on average.
Jam City, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Culver City, California. The company was founded in 2010 by Chris DeWolfe, Colin Digiaro, Aber Whitcomb, and Josh Yguado. Jam City has nine studios located in the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe. As of 2021, it employs 825 people. Netmarble is the largest shareholder in Jam City. As of 2021, Jam City's games have 31 million monthly active users and 1.3 billion total downloads.
PlayerScale, Inc. is a Belmont-based gaming infrastructure provider. As of 23 May 2013 it operates as a subsidiary of Yahoo!, but it is still functioning as a stand-alone business unit.
TT Games Limited is a British holding company and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Games. The company was established in 2005 through the merger of developer Traveller's Tales and publisher Giant Interactive. Its other branches include developer TT Fusion, animation studio TT Animation and mobile game studio TT Odyssey. The company is best known for its video games based on the Lego construction toy.
Wild Ones was a video game published by Playdom. It was released on 18 December 2009 and closed on 28 August 2013, becoming one of Playdom's most popular games.
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