Trion, however, was said to be doing something big in the realm of massively multiplayer online games, or MMO, where players connected by the Internet do battle in fantastical virtual universes. Reid, a gregarious man whose short hair is the only indication of his past life as a U.S. Army lieutenant, had seen how social networks and smartphones were revolutionizing gaming, and he was interested in trying something new. But unlike some of his peers, Reid, 42, didn’t want to make these so-called casual games that were so often used to kill time while waiting on line at the grocery store.

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The announcement could occur as soon as today. Disney declined to comment, and Indiagames founder and CEO Vishal Gondal did not respond to emails seeking comment.

In July, Disney bought Indian media conglomerate UTV, which owned a stake in Indiagames, so Disney’s acquisition would consist of purchasing the remaining shares it does not already own.

One source says the company is being valued at $80 million to $100 million, and that Disney already owns roughly half of the company, meaning it will end up spending as much as $50 million on the remaining stake. Other Indiagames shareholders include Adobe and Cisco Systems.

Indiagames, which was founded by Gondal in 1999, has more than 300 employees and has offices in Mumbai, Beijing, London and Los Angeles, according to its Web site. Some of its recent games include Cricket WorldCup Fever, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, Godzilla — Monster Mayhem and Acorn Mafia, on the iPhone and iPad. It wasn’t until recently that it experimented with making social games on Facebook.

The acquisition by Disney could be following up on recent statements the company made to investors, saying it was interested in building a larger footprint in other countries, especially in India. Additionally, Disney identified mobile content as one of the key ways to distribute its brand.

A recent profile of Indiagames in Business Standard reported that the company recorded a profit of $400,000 on revenues of $11 million in its last fiscal year (that is converted from Rs 2 crore and Rs 54.5 crore, respectively).

The marketing deal being discussed by San Francisco-based Zynga and the singer involve Lady Gaga’s third studio album “Born This Way,” due to be released May 23, though the exact details of their agreement are still being worked out, these people said. There are more than 250 million active monthly players of Zynga’s online games on Facebook, which include FarmVille and CityVille.

Spokeswomen for Zynga and Lady Gaga declined to comment.

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Videogame makers in Asia, who years ago figured out how to make money from free services by began charging players for virtual goods on free services, like weapons and outfits. Now that approach is catching on in the U.S., even among makers of big-budget online games.

This week, Sony Corp.’s (SNE) videogame unit said it plans to soon offer a free version of “EverQuest II,” the company’s flagship online fantasy game, while allowing players to upgrade their characters by purchasing better virtual armor and other items.

It’s a big change from the $15-a-month subscription fee Sony normally charges for the game—a plan that will continue to exist for players who don’t want to pay a la carte fees for virtual goods.

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Shenzhen-based Tencent, which popularized instant messaging in China and operates an online game portal and other Chinese Internet services, said it will invest approximately $300 million in Moscow-based Digital Sky, also known as DST. The companies plan to explore “new business opportunities” in the Russian-speaking Internet markets, said Tencent President Martin Lau in a joint statement Monday.

“Our teams share many common views and beliefs and a clear vision about the significant opportunities that lay ahead,” said Digital Sky’s chief executive, Yuri Milner, in the statement. Digital Sky is known for its stakes in Russian Internet companies including Mail.ru, one of the country’s largest Web sites.

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“Here’s what we know at this point. Our MSN China joint venture contracted with an independent vendor to create a feature called MSN Juku that allowed MSN users to find friends via microblogging and online games. This MSN Juku feature was made available to MSN China users in November and is still in beta.

Because questions have been raised about the code base comprising the service, MSN China will be suspending access to the Juku beta feature temporarily while we investigate the matter fully.”

– Microsoft’s statement on the Plurk-Juku debacle

If Microsoft didn’t know what a Plurk was before, it knows now.

The software giant has suspended MSN Juku, its Chinese microblog site, following accusations that it copied the design and code of Plurk, a Twitter rival popular in Taiwan and Indonesia.

In a blog post earlier this week, Plurk alleged that Juku bore an uncanny resemblance to its service, right down to the code base and data structures.

“From the filter tabs, emoticons, qualifier/verb placement, Karma scoring system, media support, new user walkthroughs to pretty much everything else that gives Plurk its trademark appeal, Microsoft China’s offering ripped off our service,” the company claimed in a blistering blog post.

“We’re still in shock asking why Microsoft would even stoop to this level of wilfully plagiarising a young and innovative upstart’s work rather than reach out to us or innovate on their own terms,” the post continued. “Of course, it just hits that much closer to home when all your years of hard work and effort to create something unique are stolen so brazenly. All the more ironic considering Microsoft has often been leading the charge on fighting for stronger IP laws and combating software piracy in China.”

Indeed. If this is a theft, it’s a serious and embarrassing infraction for Microsoft (MSFT)–even if, as the company claims, Juku’s code was provided by a third-party vendor hired by its MSN China joint venture. Microsoft should have vetted the vendor more thoroughly, particularly since the software giant just suffered a similar embarrassment with its Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, which borrowed a bit too heavily from the GPLv2-licensed ImageMaster project.

UPDATE: Microsoft has determined that the company that developed MSN Juku did indeed copy Plurk’s code. “The vendor has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied,” Microsoft said in a statement. “This was in clear violation of the vendor’s contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft’s policies respecting intellectual property.”

Microsoft said it is now suspending access to Juku “indefinitely. We are obviously very disappointed, but we assume responsibility for this situation. We apologize to Plurk and we will be reaching out to them directly to explain what happened and the steps we have taken to resolve the situation.”

Here’s Microsoft’s full statement about the incident:

On Monday, December 14, questions arose over a beta application called Juku developed by a Chinese vendor for our MSN China joint venture. We immediately worked with our MSN China joint venture to investigate the situation.

The vendor has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied. This was in clear violation of the vendor’s contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft’s policies respecting intellectual property.

When we hire an outside company to do development work, our practice is to include strong language in our contract that clearly states the company must provide work that does not infringe the intellectual property rights of others. We are a company that respects intellectual property and it was never our intent to have a site that was not respectful of the work that others in the industry have done.

We will be suspending access to the Juku beta indefinitely.
We are obviously very disappointed, but we assume responsibility for this situation. We apologize to Plurk and we will be reaching out to them directly to explain what happened and the steps we have taken to resolve the situation.

In the wake of this incident, Microsoft and our MSN China joint venture will be taking a look at our practices around applications code provided by third-party vendors.

The Cnzz.com report says that almost two-thirds of China’s 338 million Web users are now online gamers. The online-game industry, which currently accounts for more than half of the total Internet economy, will see strong annual growth at a rate of 20 percent in future years, the report says.

The mainstream remains the awkwardly named sector of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). In October, six out of the 10 most popular online games in China are MMORPG games, according to the report. World of Warcraft by Activision Blizzard (ATVI) still tops the list with the most registered players and peak simultaneous online users. But the current government regulatory fighting over its Chinese license, held by Netease, may yet have a negative impact on the game, according to the report.

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Now, Wi-Fi is making its way into your car. A small California company, Autonet Mobile, has teamed up with Chrysler and others to sell a service that floods any brand or model of car or truck with Wi-Fi Internet connectivity that can be used by multiple passengers and devices simultaneously. It’s a dealer-installed option on Chrysler vehicles, but Chrysler dealers, and some independent auto electronic shops, will install it on any brand of car for a fee.

The system works via a special wireless router, mounted in the trunk or rear cargo area, that draws Internet connectivity from cellphone towers and then converts it into an in-car Wi-Fi signal with a range of 100 feet. This router looks like a military device, because it is ruggedized to survive jolts and vibrations, and is shielded to avoid interference with the car’s electronics or with cellphone calls.

As long as they have built-in Wi-Fi, the laptops and smart phones used in the car don’t need any add-on hardware or software to use Autonet. To them, it looks like any other Wi-Fi signal. And no special car antenna is needed; the router uses its own large antennas.

I’ve been testing Autonet Mobile in a rented Saturn Vue SUV in Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, and found it worked well for most basic Internet tasks like email and Web surfing. The router turns on when the car does, and the Wi-Fi signal shows up about 30 seconds later. However, Autonet is relatively pokey. It’s too slow to be reliable for streaming video longer than brief YouTube clips, or for smooth video chatting.

Perhaps the biggest downside of in-car Wi-Fi is that it provides one more potential distraction for drivers. The company says the service is only for passengers, not drivers, but there’s no technical barrier to a driver using it.

The Autonet Mobile router

Of course, drivers already can court danger this way by using cellphone wireless connectivity on a laptop, iPhone, BlackBerry or other connected device. And that raises another question: Since you can already connect to the Internet from a car with a smart phone or a cellular data card for a laptop, why would you want Autonet?

There are three reasons. First, cellular Internet access is typically tied to a single device at a time. But Autonet’s Wi-Fi service works just like Wi-Fi in your house: Multiple people with multiple devices can use it at the same time. In fact, the company envisions that the service’s primary use will be to allow children in the back seat to use laptops for social networking, online games or homework; and multiple adult passengers to conduct online business or research routes and destinations.

Second, the monthly fees can be lower, at least for laptops. A typical cellular data card for a single laptop costs $60 a month. But Autonet’s service starts at $29 a month for the entire car, regardless of how many devices are being used. A premium plan costs $59. The plans differ by how much data you are allowed to consume monthly. And Autonet requires no special laptop cards or software.

Lastly, the company claims that it has invented a technology that keeps the connection steadier while moving than the typical direct cellular connection. Although some videos froze on me, I never lost Autonet’s Internet connection, whether moving slowly through downtown D.C. or moving faster on suburban highways and streets.

In my tests, with a laptop and an iPhone, Autonet’s speeds ranged from around 100 kilobits per second to around 500 kbps — far slower than a typical cable Internet service in a home. My average speed was between 400 kbps and 450 kbps.

There are some other drawbacks. First, the router costs $499, though that will soon drop to $399 in a holiday price promotion. Second, you have to sign at least a one-year contract, even if you pay monthly. Third, your Internet usage is limited. The $29 plan gets you just 1 gigabyte of data a month, while the $59 plan gets you 5 gigabytes. That should be plenty for most typical users, but not for those with large appetites for data.

These service fees are all-inclusive. You don’t have to pay anything to any cellphone carrier. But there is also a $35 “activation fee,” whose justification is murky, and installation costs are estimated at $50 to $75.

For security, you can set Autonet up with a password, but it doesn’t yet use the most advanced version of Wi-Fi security. The company says that, while it can track and manage your Internet connection, it cannot determine the content of what you are doing online.

Finally, because the router is hard-mounted, you can’t remove it for use in, say, a hotel room or second car.

If you’re willing to invest in the router and can tolerate the slow speeds, Autonet might be what you want — as long as you can resist using it while driving.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

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