The Walt Disney Company agreed to acquire online social gaming company Playdo for $ 563.2 million, subject to certain conditions and a performance linked earn out of up to $ 200 million, the company disclosed on Tuesday.

Playdom’s titles, including Social City, Sorority Life, Market Street and Bola, engage around 42 million active players each month. With the acquisition, Disney expects to strengthen its digital gaming portfolio, acquire a management team and provide new ways to interact on social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Playdom has 15 game development studios. Reporting to DIMG president Steve Wadsworth, Playdom’s CEO John Pleasants will become an executive VP of the Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG) and general manager of Playdom.

Additionally, the transaction will close by the end of Disney’s 2010 fiscal year and is subject to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act clearance and certain non-US merger control regulations.

Walt Disney has acquired startup iPhone app developer Tapulous, as the company continues its push into mobile games.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed. This acquisition will help Disney in its  continuous drive to be the leader in mobile entertainment.

With the deal, Disney becomes one of the biggest developers of games for Apple’s App Store. Tapulous has 30 million users and is profitable, according to its website. “Tap Tap Revenge,” a top-selling download at the App Store, is played by tapping a screen to the rhythm of a song. While the software is free, players must buy new songs.

As part of the acquisition, Tapulous founders Bart Decrem and Andrew Lacy and their development team will join the Disney Interactive Media Group.

“As part of Disney Interactive Media Group, we’ll develop more games, more quickly and with the resources of the world’s leading entertainment company. We will continue to develop apps that live at the intersection of music and gaming, but we’ll also push into new and exciting areas of mobile social entertainment,” Decrem said.

Tapulous’ investors include Salesforce.com Chief Executive Marc Benioff and venture capital firm Khosla Ventures.

The Associated Press is reporting that shareholders of Marvel Entertainment Inc. have approved the company’s acquisition by The Walt Disney Co.  The $4.3-billion acquisition will close at the end of the day, bringing Spider-Man, Iron Man, and 5,000 other comic-book characters under the same roof as Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck.

Shareholder approval of the deal was expected. Marvel Chief Executive Isaac (Ike) Perlmutter, who owns 37 per cent of Marvel stock, supported it. He will be overseeing the Marvel business after the acquisition.

Marvel shareholders will receive $30 per share in cash, plus 0.745 Disney shares for every Marvel share they own. The deal is Disney’s largest since it purchased Pixar Animation Studios Inc., the maker of Up and Cars , for $7.4-billion in stock in 2006.

Now it will be interesting to see how Disney might integrate Marvel characters into their company culture, if they do at all. Could we see a Marvel themes attraction come to a Disney park in the near future or will Disney simply keep the two separate? Thoughts?

It appears that Spider Man, Iron Man and other Marvel characters will now become part of the Disney family. Disney announced this morning that they are buying Marvel Entertainment which includes more than 5,000 Marvel characters.

Spider Man and Iron Man are two of the more popular characters in the Marvel family largely due to the success of movies related to the characters in recent years but it doesn’t end there. X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor are just some of the many within the vast company of Marvel characters.

“This is a great fit for us,” Disney boss Bob Iger told CNBC this morning. He said the acquisition was a way to attract more boys.

Disney said the transaction value is $50 per Marvel share — or about $4 billion. Iger said the acquisition will grow both Disney and Marvel. He also went on to make it clear that Disney would not rebrand the Marvel characters as Disney ones. Iger did tell CNBC there are many opportunities to mine Marvel characters that are not well known.

“This puts us in an enviable position,” Iger said. Disney can decide whether to extend deals with third parties, such as Sony, when they come up.

“Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses,” said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s Chief Executive Officer. “This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world.”

The Boards of Directors of Disney and Marvel have each approved the transaction, which is subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, certain non-United States merger control regulations, effectiveness of a registration statement with respect to Disney shares issued in the transaction and other customary closing conditions. The agreement will require the approval of Marvel shareholders.