SoftLayer will provide web infrastructure services for MMO Guildsites, a Toronto company providing feature-rich sites for massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) guilds. Founded in 2006, MMO Guildsites has grown to host more than 700 sites for guilds participating in games including World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, and EverQuest.
‘’We’re excited to be MMO […]

Virtual trading startup Live Gamer has raised $24 million in venture capital funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Pequot Ventures, the company announced today. The company’s model differs from most existing marketplaces in that it is partnering with top MMO publishers (including Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10TACLE STUDIOS, Acclaim, GoPets LTD, […]

This panel from the recent Virtual Goods Summit examines the business model around virtual goods. This panel features venture capitalists Kevin Efrusy of Accel Partners and Susan Wu of Charles River Ventures, Tim Stevens of Doppelganger, Min Kim from Nexon America and Dan Kelly of Sparter. The video runs 52 minutes.

This panel from the recent Virtual Goods Summit (June 22 at Stanford) examines whether virtual goods are mainstream or not. Participants included Robert Scoble, James Hong, Jia Shen, John Vars, and J.T. Stephens. The video runs 43 minutes.

Has real money trading (RMT) market leader IGE been sold? This became a hot topic with the news that World of Warcraft database Wowhead had been sold for a reported $1 million to Affinity Media (the ZAM Network), which already owns two other major WoW databases, Thottbot and Allakhazam. In early 2006, much was […]

There’s a discussion at Slashdot about the possibility that Congress may consider taxing virtual goods. The post is based on an CNet item by Daniel Terdiman which notes that Congress’ Joint Economic Committee will receive a report on virtual world economies in August. The story offers no news on what the report will say, but […]

The MMOBux website has a series of interviews with veterans of real money trading in game gold and other virtual goods. Interview subjects include Michael Sheng of FAVGames, Bob from UOTreasures and Marty from IRNewb, among others. Most are brief, but some interesting anecdotes. My favorite: the guy who sold his art collection buy […]

Slashdot has been the site in many heated discussions of the merits or real money trading (RMT) in MMORPG games and virtual worlds, including some of the stories we’ve written here on our blog.  With the recent “official” launch of Sparter, the peer-to-peer trading exchange backed by venture capitalists Bessemer Capital, the company decided […]

A Pennsylvania man’s bid to sue Second Life operator Linden Labs over virtual property will move forward, and may break some new legal ground regarding the Terms of Service that govern online worlds, according to Mark Wallace over at 3pointD. The suit concerns a piece of Second Life real estate that was purchased by the […]

Blizzard Entertainment announced on its forums that it has taken legal action against a “gold spammer” who advertises via in-game messaging. The announcement indicates that Blizzard isn’t targeting the group specifically for its sale of gold, but rather for its disruptive in-game advertising techniques. Here’s the text of the announcement:
“As many of you know, […]