Live Gamer Announces Acquisition of Twofish
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News Publisher:
Two Fish Live Gamer
News Date:
08/24/2009
News Story Detail:
New York City, NY — August 24, 2009 — Live Gamer (www.livegamer.com), the global leader of total commerce solutions for micro-transaction-based businesses spanning online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, today announced it has completed its acquisition of Twofish (www.twofish.com), the premier provider of virtual economy data solutions for casual gaming and social application developers.
The Twofish acquisition accelerates Live Gamer’s recent strategic initiatives over recent months. In conjunction with the recent acquisition of N-Cash, the combination of Live Gamer and Twofish creates the first truly global, end-to-end solution for the micro-transaction industry. Publishers can now turn to one partner – instead of many – for the entire spectrum of micro-transaction and in-game economy features.
Through the acquisition, Live Gamer adds Twofish’s powerful virtual economy data platform and focus on post-purchase intelligence to its Total Commerce Solution. Twofish’s core product, Twofish Elements, combines the deepest currency, inventory, and account data available, with an unparalleled ability to test and optimize retail pricing, economic policies, and in-game content. Twofish’s EasyElements application toolkit makes the most popular Elements features even simpler to implement, so that setting up a virtual marketplace take just a few hours, instead of days.
“With the microtransaction business model taking off rapidly in North America and Europe, our Publishing partners are increasingly looking for highly sophisticated technologies to manage and build their businesses. Twofish’s technology has set the gold standard for in-game virtual economy management and analytics,” said Mitch Davis, CEO and Chairman of Live Gamer. “Combining their engineering talent with our proven transaction platform, fraud management, large-scale publisher support, and international payment gateways provides an end-to-end commerce solution that goes beyond monetization to drive core business metrics.”
“This acquisition caps six months of explosive growth for Twofish,” said Lisa Rutherford, President of Twofish, “Virtual economies have become a driving force in social and casual gaming, and now we’re delighted to be joining the Live Gamer family to deliver best-in-class technology for our partners.”
The combined company has over 70 live customers handling over 3 million transactions per month. Live Gamer is already integrating the technologies to enhance the services for partners, and Davis expects to roll out new initiatives in the coming months.
In addition, two current Twofish Board members, Michael Kim from Rustic Canyon Ventures and Twofish co-founder Sean Ryan, will join the Live Gamer Board of Directors.
Live Gamer: Total Commerce Solution
Live Gamer offers publishers a seamless primary and secondary market engine leveraging a full e-commerce platform featuring virtual item SKU management; e-wallet and billing; global payment gateway integration; anti-fraud; and analytics and reporting. Handling 56M+ users in 23 countries from over 100 game integrations, this complete yet modular technology stack is one of the first market-proven total commerce solutions for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, and allows operators the ultimate flexibility in choosing the right elements for their particular needs. Live Gamer works closely with publishers to drive ARPU and improve conversion rates while maintaining a great user experience.
About Twofish:
Twofish Elements is the only virtual economy data platform that harnesses powerful post-purchase intelligence to manage virtual economies for leading social, gaming, and entertainment experiences. The EasyElements application toolkit lets developers quickly launch a virtual economy, while still leveraging the scalability and security of the core Elements platform. Based in Palo Alto, California, Twofish is led by a team with world-class expertise in consumer Internet, electronic payments, and economic research, and is funded by Rustic Canyon, Triplepoint, and Venrock. For more information, log onto www.Twofish.com, blog.Twofish.com
About Live Gamer
Live Gamer combines leading e-commerce software with virtual economy advisory services to help online game publishers, virtual world operators, and social networks create and optimize new transaction-based revenue streams. Founded in 2007, Live Gamer began legitimizing the estimated $2 billion player-to-player market for virtual goods with its Live Gamer™ Exchange, adopted by leading game publishers including Acclaim, Funcom, GoPets, NHN USA, IAC’s InstantAction and Sony Online Entertainment, among others. With the acquisitions of Korea’s N-Cash, the world’s premiere micro-transaction platform, and U.S. based Twofish, the only virtual economy data platform that harnesses powerful post-purchase intelligence, Live Gamer now offers a total commerce solution to power any transaction-based business model. Headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles and Palo Alto, CA and Seoul, Korea, the company is led by pioneers in both the gaming and digital entertainment industries and is backed by $24 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital. For more information, visit www.livegamer.com or connect with us on Twitter (@livegamer), Facebook or MySpace.
Media Contact
Vanessa Camones, Jennifer Lankford, theMIX agency
for Live Gamer and Twofish
livegamer@themixagency.com
415 - 829- 7902
The Twofish acquisition accelerates Live Gamer’s recent strategic initiatives over recent months. In conjunction with the recent acquisition of N-Cash, the combination of Live Gamer and Twofish creates the first truly global, end-to-end solution for the micro-transaction industry. Publishers can now turn to one partner – instead of many – for the entire spectrum of micro-transaction and in-game economy features.
Through the acquisition, Live Gamer adds Twofish’s powerful virtual economy data platform and focus on post-purchase intelligence to its Total Commerce Solution. Twofish’s core product, Twofish Elements, combines the deepest currency, inventory, and account data available, with an unparalleled ability to test and optimize retail pricing, economic policies, and in-game content. Twofish’s EasyElements application toolkit makes the most popular Elements features even simpler to implement, so that setting up a virtual marketplace take just a few hours, instead of days.
“With the microtransaction business model taking off rapidly in North America and Europe, our Publishing partners are increasingly looking for highly sophisticated technologies to manage and build their businesses. Twofish’s technology has set the gold standard for in-game virtual economy management and analytics,” said Mitch Davis, CEO and Chairman of Live Gamer. “Combining their engineering talent with our proven transaction platform, fraud management, large-scale publisher support, and international payment gateways provides an end-to-end commerce solution that goes beyond monetization to drive core business metrics.”
“This acquisition caps six months of explosive growth for Twofish,” said Lisa Rutherford, President of Twofish, “Virtual economies have become a driving force in social and casual gaming, and now we’re delighted to be joining the Live Gamer family to deliver best-in-class technology for our partners.”
The combined company has over 70 live customers handling over 3 million transactions per month. Live Gamer is already integrating the technologies to enhance the services for partners, and Davis expects to roll out new initiatives in the coming months.
In addition, two current Twofish Board members, Michael Kim from Rustic Canyon Ventures and Twofish co-founder Sean Ryan, will join the Live Gamer Board of Directors.
Live Gamer: Total Commerce Solution
Live Gamer offers publishers a seamless primary and secondary market engine leveraging a full e-commerce platform featuring virtual item SKU management; e-wallet and billing; global payment gateway integration; anti-fraud; and analytics and reporting. Handling 56M+ users in 23 countries from over 100 game integrations, this complete yet modular technology stack is one of the first market-proven total commerce solutions for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, and allows operators the ultimate flexibility in choosing the right elements for their particular needs. Live Gamer works closely with publishers to drive ARPU and improve conversion rates while maintaining a great user experience.
About Twofish:
Twofish Elements is the only virtual economy data platform that harnesses powerful post-purchase intelligence to manage virtual economies for leading social, gaming, and entertainment experiences. The EasyElements application toolkit lets developers quickly launch a virtual economy, while still leveraging the scalability and security of the core Elements platform. Based in Palo Alto, California, Twofish is led by a team with world-class expertise in consumer Internet, electronic payments, and economic research, and is funded by Rustic Canyon, Triplepoint, and Venrock. For more information, log onto www.Twofish.com, blog.Twofish.com
About Live Gamer
Live Gamer combines leading e-commerce software with virtual economy advisory services to help online game publishers, virtual world operators, and social networks create and optimize new transaction-based revenue streams. Founded in 2007, Live Gamer began legitimizing the estimated $2 billion player-to-player market for virtual goods with its Live Gamer™ Exchange, adopted by leading game publishers including Acclaim, Funcom, GoPets, NHN USA, IAC’s InstantAction and Sony Online Entertainment, among others. With the acquisitions of Korea’s N-Cash, the world’s premiere micro-transaction platform, and U.S. based Twofish, the only virtual economy data platform that harnesses powerful post-purchase intelligence, Live Gamer now offers a total commerce solution to power any transaction-based business model. Headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles and Palo Alto, CA and Seoul, Korea, the company is led by pioneers in both the gaming and digital entertainment industries and is backed by $24 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital. For more information, visit www.livegamer.com or connect with us on Twitter (@livegamer), Facebook or MySpace.
Media Contact
Vanessa Camones, Jennifer Lankford, theMIX agency
for Live Gamer and Twofish
livegamer@themixagency.com
415 - 829- 7902