Google Slide To Be Shut Down

AllThingsD:

Slide, the social apps company that Google bought just over a year ago for about $200 million, will be dissolved, and its well-regarded leader Max Levchin will depart Google, sources close to the matter told AllThingsD.

Read the whole story: AllThingsD

Comments

[Adopted Monkey]

04:35 PM on 09/13/2011

A few players have speculated that Slide will be turning off SPP entirely on July 1st, July 2nd, or in the near future. This is completely untrue and we would like to put these rumors to rest. We hope that SPP will remain an active game and community, and we have no plans to shut the site down. We know some of you are wondering how SPP will be able to continue without money coming in from Gold. Over the past few months we have worked to optimize SPP.com to be as efficient as possible and require minimal maintenance and resources." Slide has no plans to turn off SPP, and expect to leave the application on and available for the foreseeable future. We will no longer be adding new features or new content, but SPP will still be around to play and enjoy. In short, we will be continue SPP as the customer requests in their Resolution."
So we had asked every question there was to ask to ensure SPP would remain online and an active game. We were met at every corner with the guarantee that the application would continue. They introduced new features and sales to help them back that up. We had no reason to believe anything else. So once more, Slide aka Google suckered us in with their empty promises and a lil bit more money invested to get us to where we are today.
BOTTOM LINE - UPHOLD YOUR PROMISE TO US!!!!

[Adopted Monkey]

04:34 PM on 09/13/2011

"It is not a common business practice for companies to share their strategic vision or goals for their products with their customers. For example, neither Apple nor Amazon shared the details of their cloud-based music services with their customers in advance of their launch, despite that information potentially being relevant to their customers' purchasing decisions. There are often important business, strategic, and competitive reasons for keeping vision and strategy confidential."
In the same breath: THE SO CALLED PROMISE
"During the past few months, however, it became clear that there was little more that we could add; SPP had become a mature product, capable of standing on its own. As a company, we continually evaluate all of our projects and strive to focus on what enables us to best serve our mission. As SPP’s maturity and ability to be self-sustaining became clear, it made sense to make the very difficult decision to slowly reduce the resources dedicated to SPP so that we could focus them on projects where we could have a larger impact. Making the decision to change SPP was not something that we did lightly, and ensuring the longevity of the SPP community was at the core of our planning for these changes. We have always been focused on features that would one day allow SPP to thrive on its own, and we feel it has now reached that point.

[Adopted Monkey]

04:33 PM on 09/13/2011

I truly believe that Google Inc. and "society" need to understand the bottom line to all of our complaints. While many have voiced all of the money they personally have invested into SuperPoke Pets on virtual goods, demanding a "refund" of sorts for every penny they invested I do not believe this will make the situation any better. I personally have invested thousands of dollars to obtain items that I really loved and wanted to be able to use in decorating my habitats or getting for a fellow player. At the same time, I knew that every penny I spent allowed SPP employees to receive a paycheck in an economy that is hurting so bad for jobs or to just put some meat on their table for their family. So many can make fun of us players with this one Social Game, but if it wasn't for people like us who willingly gave money, SPP would not have been worth the 200 million it was sold for.
The bottom line for everyone is called lack of truthfulness. Slide aka Google had a responsibility to us players just as much as we had a responsibility to their Terms of Service. To make false statements and to promote those false statements is definitely infringing on our rights. Maybe Google didn't feel the need to let us in on their business decisions as they stated in a complaint through the Better Business Bureau:
Company's Final Response - Posted 06/20/2011

[Huff2of3]

11:07 PM on 09/04/2011

( Last post, thanks for sticking with me)
Tell me who in there right mind buys out a company for $200 million dollars that comes with at least one huge well established game, and is bringing in thousands of dollars each month turns around in exactly one year, and decides to pull out all the money making options, then proceeds to kill the game all together knowing darn well there are thousands of players that will be pissed off, and heartbroken by this decision, and in the mean time is getting ready to release there very own gaming site Google+?? A site that they could have simply left in it's original format, and placed in on for more people to love, and enjoy it. There is something Google is not saying, and I personally, along with my SPP family vote to Boycott Google (Google and its entities need to be boycotted until this is resolved. That includes:
search engine, email, mobile apps., etc.http://ejeads.blog.com/2011/08/30/spp-unite-and-boycott-google/ ) till they do the right thing, and keep SPP Alive, and running!!!
Please support our cause!!! For more info join us on FB by Befriending these links: http://www.facebook.com/groups/280923718589765/ , http://www.facebook.com/groups/POKEHAPPYPEOPLE/ .

[Ann Haines]

05:42 PM on 09/05/2011

Many players who are house-bound due to illness or disability find that SuperPokePets gives them a valuable way to form friendships and be socially active.
However I am one of the 'normal' people who love SPP as a form of relaxation and no-pressure social interaction. Although how 'normal' it is to have 4 real-life cats, work as a primary age teacher AND have 3 virtual pets who seem to have lives of their own, I'm not sure ... I'm also the officer of a club with 100 members from all over the world.
Like most, I am not worried about the money; I want to keep my pets, their habitats and inventory so that I can keep playing. I also want to keep my friends and links to the community that SPP has grown into.
The whole 'give us our money back' outcry was a way to attract Google's attention in the only way that seemed possible ie attempting hitting them where it hurts; in the pocket.
I think Google made a very short sighted and silly decision to axe SPP when they could easily have put it lock stock and barrel on to Google+. Indeed this was what we all hoped from the time Google bought SLIDE.
If Google put SPP on to Google+ even now, they would only have to open the doors and stand well back for the stampede of loyal SPP players to Google+ to begin!

[Huff2of3]

11:05 PM on 09/04/2011

(Hopefully I can post the rest in 2 more posts)....If your up to date on the economy News China is becoming the richest Country, and we pretty much only have ourselves to thank for that. Anyways back to my point, if SPP is basically player ran, and August is the first real month that Google has to go on by stating that there's a lack of players on SPP that they had hoped for, well see from my point of view this is just not a fair, and accurate notion, specially since the months this has all been judged by is July through August in which these are Summer months for most of us, and our kids are just now returning to school, and we are just now starting to get back into our normal game playing schedules, but even still there are over half of us that still have our kids at home till next week. So this is why we all believe that we have been scammed, and that they all knew this was going to happen no matter what. Please tell me do they really think we're that stupid to believe that this was there original plan really?? ( Hopefully 1 more post after this one, please follow)

[Huff2of3]

11:02 PM on 09/04/2011

(Sorry got a lot to say, didn't realize the comment thread was so short)...that they could assure the safety of our beloved game when they explained that even without any more money coming into the game that SPP had matured into basically a self maintaining game, with very little need of help, or maintenance from the slide team, thanks to all us loyal players we had helped them reach there goal status, that they had hoped to reach from the beginning of Superpoke! Pets creation. Now tell me if this is all true then why is it that this was announced on June 6th the changes I mean, and at the end of July all Gold buying features would be completely removed from the game, and August is literally the first month that SPP was to run as they stated was planned from the day it was created, and not even 25 days later we get the News that all Slide products but 1 would be shutting down, this includes Superpoke! Pets, along with many others. You know what else I find rather ODD is that the only Slide program to remain was created in China by the Slide team for Google. So much for loyalty to the USA right? I mean why only keep the program made out of China? ( Please follow to my 4th post)

[Huff2of3]

10:57 PM on 09/04/2011

(my comment continues)Well this is a bunch of lies. Back in June the Slide team (payed by Google) announced to us (SPP Players) that they would be removing all new content like new Gold/ Coin item releases, all GOLD buying options, and they would be giving the VIP membership to all the people that still had the membership on June 30th, so in other words they encouraged many who had not had this membership that cost 4.99 to purchase this membership by telling everybody that they would have this feature for the foreseeable future, also they had continued to release Gold, and Coin items as normal till the end of June, also encouraged us to buy what items we're still in the shop, cause again by July 1st the only people that could continue to purchase the gold in the shop were the people that still had previously purchased gold bars stored on there accounts, and that they would not be giving a refund, so they were told that if they still had any unspent Gold bars at the end of July they would loose what was left. They had also promised us that they had no plans to turn SPP off completely of course in the back of our minds we didn't believe them, but they were pretty convincing when they explained the reason....( please follow to my 3rd comment post)

[Huff2of3]

10:48 PM on 09/04/2011

I'm a loyal player of Superpoke! Pets (an app created by Slide), and have invested hundreds of dollars to this app. along with thousands of others that love this game, and we're not going to just sit here, and do nothing while Google decides to take all our items we payed lots of money for that we chose to spend on this game, in good faith we were helping to keep our beloved game, and thanks to all who loves this game we have turned in into a HUGE meaningful community. A lot of us players are either disabled (mentally and/or physically) many are home bound, also there are terminally ill people, and because of the friendships, fellowship, and prayers they have received in this great community they are still alive. According to many of there Dr's, they're way past the life expectancy they were given. Also there are just your everyday hard working, and some stay at home mother's that find what we all have found in this community, and that's a place to go even if just for a little bit to forget our stresses, and many issue's no matter what they are, and thanks to that little time of stress relief we're able to go on day to day, and here Google is leading everybody to believe that there choosing to close all, but 1 of Slides programs due to them not catching on like they had hoped. (please follow to my next comment post)

[Niki Spencer]

01:54 PM on 08/26/2011

$200 million for a year's worth of ownership... ouch that hurts

[nishioka]

01:56 AM on 08/27/2011

Not if you're the guy who got the check for $200 million!

[Smurf Daddy]

11:25 AM on 08/26/2011

Maybe I should start up a company for Google to buy for a lot of money. Then get fired so I can start up another one. Easy...

[Rick Sims]

09:12 PM on 08/28/2011

But we probably would have done it already if...