Rumor: Google Negotiating with EA, Disney, Zynga

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Recently Google Inc. has been making some high profile investments in the area of online games, amid simultaneous rumors of developing a competitor to Facebook, "Google Me". Now according to the Wall Street Journal, Google is currently in talks with the major developers of online games for their upcoming social networking service.

The mentioned companies in talks with Google are Playfish Inc, the major provider of online games bought by EA last November, Zynga Game Network Inc, the market leader in social games in which Google invested over $100 million, and Disney owned Playdom Inc. A "Youtube of games" developed by Google would allow these companies to be far less reliant on Facebook, the dominant portal for online social games.

Google has previously attempted to get into both the social networking business and the online gaming businesses, as it owns social networking site Orkut as well as iGoogle, a simple online games service. However as Facebook begins to control a larger and larger share of internet use and ad revenue, while being largely unsearchable by Google, Google Me is expected to be a much more serious attempt to move into these businesses.