Yahoo Is Not Playing Games
February 9, 2016
Years ago I had to review a Google pitch to Yahoo about games. The basic idea was that the Alphabet Google thing wanted to team up with Yahoo in the mobile and online game sector. Yahoo, as I recall, blew off their neighbor. Not surprising. The Alphabet Google thing and Yahoo had a legal do si do about the GoTo/Overture advertising notion. There was a settlement, and I think that the Yahooligans were not completely comfortable having their lunch eaten by those sports down the road.
Flash forward to 2016. The old Yahoo is still the old Yahoo. I think the company is for sale, but the Xoogler running the show won’t spill the beans. There are more opportunities than ever for the purple gang to find their future elsewhere.
I read “Yahoo Games Has Passed Away at Just 13” and learned that those games that once caught the fancy of Googzilla are no more. The write up informed me:
Yahoo Games, THE once-hopping online game hub best known for its simulacrum of classic board and card games, is shutting down. The news was buried amidst major changes for the company: As we reported Tuesday, Yahoo will lay off roughly 15 percent of the company, downsize across the board, and shutter many offerings, including its TV efforts.
One wonders what might have been if Yahoo and the Google got their act together and did a game deal. My hunch is that the answer is not much. Both companies believe that if they enter a niche, success is inevitable.
Yahoo and its stakeholders have learned how that has worked out. The Googlers are just now beginning to ponder the limits of there zero gravity approach to online revenue.
Net net: A good idea a decade ago won’t carry the water from the river to the well today. Yahoo may be moving down a path that Google will reluctantly follow.
Stephen E Arnold, February 9, 2016
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