SuperPoke!

Superpoke! and SuperPoke! Pets were virtual goods apps for Facebook and MySpace originally created by Nikil Gandhy, Will Liu, and Jonathan Hsu.^[1] They launched less than one month after the creation of the Facebook Platform. Max Levchin's Slide acquired the application and its creators in 2007, with the application growing to become one of Facebook's most popular applications in terms of monthly active users.^[2] The application mimicked Facebook's own "poke" feature, adding new actions like smiles, winks, slaps, and “smacking” Facebook friends. At one point SuperPoke! allowed users to virtually “stab” friends; Facebook later asked Slide to remove this option.^[3]

SuperPoke! differentiated itself from other applications by introducing characters such as a sheep, chicken and penguin. These characters were originally designed by Nikil Gandhy. Superpoke! was shut down on September 27, 2011 and SuperPoke! Pets closed March 7, 2012

SuperPoke! Pets

Slide capitalized on the popularity of the SuperPoke! brand by creating SuperPoke! Pets (also known as SPP), which allowed users to take care of virtual pets. Players had the ability to customize aspects such as their characters' looks and home. SuperPoke!'s founder, Nikil Gandhy chose to be consistent with the artwork and style. They used the same characters created in SuperPoke! for the animals users could adopt and used the same style items users could purchase in Pets.

SuperPoke! Pets launched April 2008 on social networks Facebook, MySpace, and Hi5. Slide experimented with the app, first by releasing “gold items” for purchase with gold bars (virtual cash) that users purchased with real money. In late December 2008, SuperPokePets launched its own website, titled SPP.com or SuperPokePets.com, which gave pet owners free, cross-network membership to link members from different platforms. Once on the website, members could customize their own profiles with their existing pets from the social networks, and participate in activities and features the network apps did not offer.

Following more success, SPP held decorating contests where celebrities such as Ashley Tisdale and Keith Urban came to promote their albums such as Tisdale's Guilty Pleasure and Urban's Defying Gravity. Winners were awarded special badges and a copy of the CD. Most thanked Gandhy personally or in song, culminating with Keith Urban's rendition of "I Only Have Eyes For You, Nik", recorded in 2013.

Shutdown of SuperPoke! Pets and subsequent lawsuit for loss of purchased virtual goods

In August 2010, Slide was acquired by Google,^[4] and almost a year later SuperPoke! Pets announced significant changes including removal of gold buying and quests.

In September 2011, it was announced that SuperPoke! Pets would be shut down permanently beginning March 6, 2012.^[5]

In 2012, the SuperPoke! Pets user community sued Google/Slide^[6] for shutting down SuperPoke! Pets after its players had invested an estimated $650 million^[5] of money in virtual goods that, with the shutdown of the app, would now expire worthless. The plaintiff's legal team wrote ^[6] that Google's offer of a limited, "SuperPoke! Pets Lite" that eliminated access to virtual goods and interaction with pets was inadequate because it “entirely stripped the value from customers' original purchases,” rendering their virtual items as “effectively valueless” as users could no longer interact with each other on the secondary market or play with their virtual pets. Characterizing the virtual items they had purchased as “property,” they claimed that as a result of Slide/Google's actions, individual players lost access to an inventory of goods that had cost “hundreds or even thousands of dollars.”^[6]

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