Xfire Purchased, Team Leaving

phorce phed and several other readers sent news that a system notification was sent out this evening through the Xfire IM client, to wit: "Xfire was bought by new owners today. Most of the team that has built Xfire over the last six years is leaving. We enjoyed working for you for the last 127 releases and wish we could stay to create the next 127. Good bye, good luck, and game on. — The Xfire Team." According to Wikipedia, the new owner is 3D Realms.

Don't rely on wiki too much..

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've heard it's been edited multiple times since the announcement and both times was a different name of the buyer. Just wait until something official turns up.

3D realms? Ummm... No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not according to Wikipedia -- according to some random edit made to wikipedia with no source and reverted minutes later. Given DNF jokes, I hardly think this bears mentioning.

What a shitty summary

[sopssa]

3D Realms seems unlikely and the random edit was only in Wikipedia for a few minutes. And why does the summary link to the static "down" html page? The website is up and working. Nice twisting there.

But really, the previous owner was Music Television. I always thought that was a little bit weird.

Re:What a shitty summary

[Anonymous Coward]

From Kotaku [kotaku.com]

Titan Gaming, a startup company, has purchased Xfire from MTV." ... "I'm just an (eX)fire Web Developer; the Marketing Department is gone too, so you'll have to wait for Titan to issue the press release, sorry."

Re:What is up with this site lately?

[cmholm]

Re: not growing v. losing... exactly. If someone wants to see a losing site, surf to kuro5hin.org. Once in a blue moon I'll surf there to see what's up, and find that the leading posts haven't changed in weeks. I could probably host the site on my DSL connection.

wikipedia is not a good news source

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodbye, Au Revoir, Da Svida, Auf Wiedersehen
2010-08-02 5:52 PM PDT
Xfire has been sold by MTV / Viacom to Titan Gaming, a startup. The vast majority of the remaining staff has been laid off.

There is no official press release at this time.

As a Web Developer who has been with this company full-time for 4+ years, I'm sad to have to pack up all of the posters from my office walls, though MTV has been trying to sell us for some time now.

I received about 800 messages in the minutes after the system broadcast went out. If I don't respond to your messages, please understand that it's nothing personal.

The Xfire service itself, as far as I know, will continue. A million people a day log into the Xfire client and FOUR million unique visitors use the website each week. No one in their right mind, in this author's humble opinion, would walk away from that kind of userbase by terminating the program.

Thank you all for your support!

I have always believed in Xfire, and our community of users has played a big part in that. Together, we made Gaming History.

source [xfire.com]

Buyer is actually Titan Gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia: about as reliable as TMZ

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/02/exclusive-titan-gaming-takes-xfire-off-viacoms-hands/

"We’ve just confirmed with Titan Gaming CEO John Maffei that they have acquired Xfire – the deal was signed just a couple of hours ago – but have not been able to pin down the exact purchase price. Here’s a brief statement from Titan:

        Titan Gaming has purchased Xfire. The terms of the purchase are undisclosed. Titan will be taking on the Xfire name. The Xfire services will continue uninterrupted for its users. Xfire redefined how gamers communicate, Titan intends to build upon this tradition and utilize the Xfire platform to help gaming companies better engage and monetize their games"

Re:What a shitty summary

[Low Ranked Craig]

Yep, and now it's on the xfire website:

Titan Gaming acquires Xfire.

August 2, 2010--Titan Gaming acquires Xfire.

Titan will be taking on the Xfire name, with a focus towards ongoing innovation in the gaming space. The Xfire services will continue uninterrupted for its users. Xfire redefined how gamers communicate, Titan...

Re:Massive quit

[totally bogus dude]

I imagine this would be part of the buyout proposal if it matters to the purchasing company. You'd have to notify every employee and have them agree to terms of employment with the new owner (which may just be the same terms, but not necessarily). I mean, you can't force people to work at a certain place, so you'd have to new contracts set up to retain the employees. Of course that means you have to spend longer in negotiations with more people knowing details of the deal, which increases the likelihood of leaks.

The IP isn't necessarily worthless if everyone leaves though. Generally all rights to the software developed by the employees of a company are owned by the company, so the buyer would get those. They would of course lose the knowledge from the people who wrote it/worked on it; but depending on how many leave and how complex the software is (and what kind of state the codebase is in), it's quite feasible to have others take over. Especially if you already have programmers etc. in a related field.

Again, all this stuff should be spelled out in the buyout proposal, including whether the buying company actually gets rights to the source code or just the trademarks, etc. Maybe not initially, but during the negotiations certainly. You're not going to buy another company without all the details pertaining to exactly what you're getting being agreed to in writing. Unless you're an idiot, of course. Although sometimes you might just be killing of a competitor, so loss of knowledge etc. isn't a problem -- you don't plan to do anything with it anyway, except bury it.