WASHINGTON, DC—Stratics, the world’s oldest online gaming website, announced on Monday that its Board of Directors had approved an agreement to be acquired by the social networking company Facebook. Stratics would remain independently branded, but its services would be increasingly integrated with Facebook’s platform over time.
“Stratics won’t bring us any new revenue,” admitted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a press conference following Monday’s announcement, “but it does give us access to Stratics’ over 100,000 community members, most of whom have never heard of Facebook.” When reporters attending the conference raised questions about the wisdom of the merger, Zuckerberg continued to insist that reaching a new demographic of users would be valuable to his company in the long term.
Taylor Smith, Stratics’ CEO, expressed mixed feelings about the acquisition in a letter published to Stratics. “Stratics volunteers, like myself, have been investing our time and resources in this community for over sixteen years,” he said. “That makes letting it go bittersweet. But after discussions with the Board, we felt that this was the best was to support Stratics users moving forward.” Smith was also hopeful that renewed investment from Facebook would finally provide the network with the resources needed to complete a redesign of the site–a project that began in May 2013.
Internet giant Google had previously made a bid for the network in early 2014, but their offer was declined by Stratics’ Board for unspecified reasons. The details of the offer were not made public. Facebook’s acquisition of Stratics is estimated to be worth a quarter million dollars in cash and stock options.
“Change is always scary, especially for [Stratics],” said Smith, “but we’re all hoping it works out for the best.”
The sale is expected to be finalized sometime this quarter.
**Update 2 April 2014: Jaykay! Happy April 1st!