Google pays $182m for social games studio

Google is buying social games developer Slide in a $182m deal to be announced on Friday, according to a source at news site TechCrunch.

The move comes as part of the search engine site’s ongoing attempts to set up a social games strategy capable of rivaling Facebook.

Google has previously invested $200m in Zynga in order to form the “cornerstone of a new Google Games”, which is expected to launch at some point later this year.

Slide, currently run by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, was valued at $500m in 2008. If the reports of the deal price prove accurate, it will leave Levchin considerably short of his previously stated aim to see Slide become bigger than Paypal.