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Quote:Live Gamer Inc™ Partners with Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment,
10TACLE STUDIOS, Acclaim, GoPets LTD, and Ping0 Interactive Limited to Launch
Publisher-Supported Marketplace for Secure Virtual Trading
$24 Million Investment by Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Pequot Ventures
NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 17, 2007 – Live Gamer Inc™ (www.livegamer.com) today announced its introduction as the premier provider of a publisher-supported, secure platform for real money trading of virtual property. Live Gamer is partnering with top massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) publishers and virtual world operators worldwide, including Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10TACLE STUDIOS, Acclaim, GoPets LTD, and Ping0 Interactive Limited. The company was founded by industry veterans and backed with $24 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Pequot Ventures.
Formalizing and Legitimizing the Existing Virtual Economy
Virtual trading today represents an estimated $1.8 billion in real money exchanged annually among MMOG players and virtual world inhabitants who buy and sell rights to use in-game goods, services, and characters . To date, such transactions have usually meant braving an unstructured, unsanctioned marketplace in which players lack protection from unethical traders, and do business in violation of the publisher's terms of service. By introducing a fully transparent, secure, publisher-sanctioned marketplace, Live Gamer helps protect content creators from the distorting impact of illicit trading on their intellectual property and provides a safe alternative for consumers around the world who spend millions of hours in-world every month.
"Virtual item trading is already transforming the way people experience MMOGs and virtual worlds, but in its traditional underground context, the impact could be as easily negative as positive for a given player or world. An economy this large clearly needs a legitimate trading infrastructure that serves the needs of each of its millions of participants," said co-founder and president, Andrew Schneider. "Live Gamer has developed a platform with all the integrity, security, and professionalism of any real-world marketplace, and we're working hand-in-hand with publishers to ensure a positive experience for every player."
Ensuring a Positive Game Play Experience
Unsanctioned trading has had an increasingly negative impact on many participants' and bystanders' game-playing experience. Live Gamer provides a toolset for publishers to preserve the integrity of the in-game economy and offer a legitimate alternative to "gold farming," in which players or organizations aggressively gather items of value within a game for solely commercial purposes, often through sweatshops of underpaid workers and/or automated methods that distort the in-world experience for other players. Live Gamer is the first provider to work with publishers to enable real money trading within their Terms of Service and End User License Agreements.
Said Trond A. Aas, CEO of Funcom, "Virtual trading has the potential to open an entirely new dimension for the player experience in some games, but it has also caused endless grief through the actions of gold farmers and fraud artists, as well as the generally poor quality of service to participants. Live Gamer makes it possible for publishers to satisfy players' growing demand for this type of activity in selected future games by providing a legitimate and balanced outlet that protects their experiences. We really look forward to offering this opportunity to players in our upcoming casual MMOG."
Game and Finance Industry Veterans
Live Gamer was co-founded by Mitch Davis and Andrew Schneider. Davis, the company's chairman, revolutionized the video game industry by pioneering in-game advertising with Massive Incorporated, which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft. He is also founder, chairman, and CEO of Brash Entertainment, a video game publisher focused on licensed IP. Schneider, Live Gamer's president, has been a digital entertainment industry leader and catalyst for emerging business opportunities at the cross-roads of entertainment and technology for over 14 years. He has held executive management positions at Sony Pictures Digital, NBC and Wind-up Records. Other company executives are gaming and Wall Street veterans, providing a mix of talent that combines Wall Street's best practices with in-depth knowledge of the gaming community.
On behalf of the board of directors, Mitch Davis said, "Even in illicit form, the virtual trading economy has proven that vast demand exists; now Live Gamer will allow this thriving marketplace to reach its full potential. We're confident in the Live Gamer team and its ability to execute successfully, together with the industry's leading publishers, to create a safe and easy option for real money trading."
About Live Gamer
Live Gamer is the leading provider for publisher-supported virtual item trading. Live Gamer's Wall Street-developed platform is trusted by top publishers worldwide and offers a turnkey solution for MMOG and virtual world operators to provide legitimate real money trading of virtual assets within their titles, facilitating a safe and fair online environment for all participants. Based in New York, NY, the company was founded by industry veterans and backed with $24 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Pequot Ventures. (www.livegamer.com) http://www.livegamer.com/index.phpI will hold my full opinion till I see how exactly it works (in each game) , but this imho could be the biggest news in the industry of the last few years. It will certainly be interesting to see how this integrates in EQ2 (what I would think is the flagship SOE brings to the table). My gut tells me that with that much funding, they won't be settling for just Station Exchange Servers, I have no clue how they plan to do any of this though. I have a feeling these people want to create a full market (sell our gold to a character in neopets and retrieve it's market value with your EQ2 character in EQ2 off an NPC maybe?), something the major brands (blizzard, soe, etc) have all shunned in the past (I think at one time there was a unoffficial website that attempted to be a market that was shutdown? anyone remember?). Now if it was "officially" supported (by at least the companies at the top of this PR), seems kinda of hypocritical at some points (not that hypocritical doesn't make people money :) I will hold my full opinion until I see how it works and how it is integrated, but anyone who thinks this isn't an industry shaking mover is not thinking of the potential. There is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much money to be made here. I would also think that this company would need a GREAT legal team, when it seems that SOE can't even offer LON tournaments outside the US, now try to operate on a national scale. There are so many things that go into a system like this (international trade laws, organized crime influence) this legal team will have its hands full. If this company succeeds they could have the potential to set LARGE AMOUNTS of precedence in the way virtual currency operates on a global level and how the law is going to be structured accordingly for future virtual worlds (is anyone surpised Linden's didn't try to get in on this?). I think these guys are probably hoping the rest of the industry jumps into the bathtub with them, but I am thinking that not everyone will want to.
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Rank: Solidified in our minds.
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Joined: 11/6/2007
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I'm guessing this has been in the works for some time. This might explain the recent exodus of some high level SoE people.
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