Graham Hopper, who has guided Disney’s 
gaming division for the past eight years, is leaving the company.
Hopper announced his departure via an internal email Monday afternoon saying “the time has come for me to move on from the company and set my sights on new horizons.”
For the better part of the last year, game industry 
pundits have shouted from the rooftops that social network gaming was the next big thing – but it’s starting to look like even they underestimated just how big it would be.
Major media companies, traditional game developers and more are gobbling up the developers of Facebook and MySpace games – and the price tags are escalating at a startling pace.
Following several days of rumors, The Walt Disney Company 
has confirmed that it has bought social game developer Playdom, a move that dramatically expands the company’s footprint in one of the fastest growing segments of the video game world.
Disney is paying $563.2 million for the company – as well as a performance-linked earn out for investors of up to $200 million. That’s a substantial premium over the $400 million Electronic Arts paid for Playfish, a larger company in the space, last November.
Disney’s taste for social gaming could be bigger 
than many people first believed.
The Wall Street Journal and others have reported that the Mouse is in talks to buy social games company Playdom for an estimated $500 million or more. No deal has been formally announced, and neither company is commenting on the reports. If completed, the acquisition would be the second notable expansion by Disney’s gaming arm this month.
Chris Morris: Journalist 