Walt Disney Company announced Tuesday that it has agreed to buy the social gaming company Playdom Inc. for $563.2 million.

Playdom is one of the biggest makers of social games on the internet. According to AppData, an analytics tracker, Playdom is the number 4 largest game developer on Facebook in terms of active monthly users. Some of its most popular games are “Social City,” “Sorority Life,” and “Mobsters.”

Steve Wadsworth, the president of the Disney Interactive Media Group, said, “There’s a huge growth opportunity happening in the marketplace that we weren’t really playing in in any significant way. We believe strongly that social gaming is a critical component of interactive entertainment and we feel it is critical for us to have a presence there.”

Disney said it expects the deal to close by the end of its 2010 fiscal year.

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