
Shawn Fanning's Incredible Shrinking Pay Day: EA Bought Game Company for $15M, Not $30M - nickb
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/shawn-fanning-s-incredible-shrinking-pay-day-ea-bought-game-company-for-15-million-not-30
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aston
Trying to figure out if this part (on what $15 mill bought EA) is a joke:

    
    
      Current Assets: $1 million
      Long-term assets: $1 million
      Acquired in-process technology: $1 million
      Goodwill: $9 million
      Finite-lived intangibles: $6 million
      Liabilities: ($3 million)
    

Goodwill? Finite-lived intangibles? And what were the liabilities that somehow
led to cashflow _into_ EA from Rupture/ThreeSF?

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dats
It's not a joke. From the latest 10-Q linked in the article:

Finite-lived intangibles include developed and core technology, carrier
contracts, trade name, and subscribers.

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imp
Thanks, I was wondering the same thing myself.

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dominik
Pretty amazing to get $15m for a site not even out of beta...

I don't see the point of Rupture. A social network for gamers, linking their
real life identities to their game identities and keeping all their friends up
to do date on their latest achievements in game? (I'm not sure whether most
gamers want to link their RL identities closely to their game identities;
imagine applying for a job and having a Rupture profile come up in the top 10
google hits on your name...)

It seems vulnerable to being muscled out by improved networking within games;
witness the example of Rupture itself, where its first beta implemented
extensive integration with Blizzard's World of Warcraft, including creating
profiles of players' equipment. Then Blizzard launched its own Armory, forcing
Rupture to reconsider, leading to the design we see today, where Rupture
serves as a "gaming aggregator and friend network," collecting Xbox Live feeds
and Armory profiles, keeping track of changes, and alerting your friends.

All that said, congratulations to Mr. Fanning on the sale.

