f13.net

With WoW at 7 million players and RMT (or money-laundering) income probably rolling in, IGE has seemed kind of quiet since buying Allakhazam and having Andraste outed as Savant (http://www.corpnews.com/node/133). That's ominous, so I did a Google news search.

According to its website, IGE stands for International Gaming (and?) Entertainment. A company by that name, with other backers, recently made a $250 million bid for a troubled US casino operator (http://www.nvtoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80) called Riviera Holdings, but failed after two weeks to provide information (http://www.streetinsider.com/Mergers+and+Acquisitions/Riviera+Holdings+(RIV)+Receives+Insufficient+Information+from+IGE+to+Decide+on+Merger+Proposal/1138508.html) on how it would fund the takeover, so the (http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article.cfm?contentID=160900) offer was  rejected by default (http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=mergersNews&storyID=2006-09-06T193655Z_01_WNAS6593_RTRIDST_0_LEISURE-RIVIERA-URGENT.XML).

IGE also bought a 35% stake in the Korean RMT market (http://gamestudy.org/eblog/?p=42), for what was considered a very low $5 million, prompting rumours of a hidden further deal (such as profit sharing?) and speculation/wishful thinking that RMT is losing value (http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/09/ige_buys_35_sta.html) ... promptly rejected, as the Korean company was just a third party auction house, whereas IGE is both an auction house and a retailer.

Meanwhile, someone from Gamasutra went to Shanghai and interviewed James Clarke, IGE's COO for Asia, resulting in a story with some interesting details (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060825/carless_01.shtml) (600 employees across 3 continents by end-of-year), including Clarke's feeble attempts to justify RMT as a gamer's right where the EULA prohibits it. The fact he's based in Shanghai, the fact he's talking about that many employees, and the suggestion (from the Terranova link above) that IGE may have stopped buying gold to resell, makes me think they're expanding their sweatshops instead.

This prompted Allakhazam himself to reveal more details in a clumsy attempt to justify his sellout (http://wow.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=21;mid=115678661321282729;page=1;howmany=50#1156857796107096435) for "enough cash to lavishly retire on".

They still seem kind of ominously quiet to me. Maybe it's because I'm not looking under the right company names. IGE set up a parent company to own itself (RPG Holdings), which is what they used to buy Allakhazam.

[edit] Apparently the casino buyout may not be the same IGE - another website suggests the IGE involved may have been set up for the bid (http://www.photosecrets.com/tlv.corps.i.html). So our IGE is definitely quiet.

[edit] typo

Holy shit, savant works for IGE? Man I'm way out of the loop these days, need to visit these forums more often.

My 4 month too late reaction: Sad panda. I liked savant.

Has he ever actually admitted that he works there? The accusations over at Corpnews seemed to be based on anonymous sources from what I remember.

Pretty sure Savant doesn't work there.

I doubt IGE's PR person, whoever it is, works at IGE. PR people for companies of that size are often third parties. All Savant ever said (http://www.corpnews.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3213&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) AFAIK was:


He never replied to the response "So is that a maybe?".  If it was not true and I were Savant, I would be pushing for a retraction. Therefore all I know as a third party is that Savant was outed as IGE_Andraste.

If I worked for a PR firm that only worked for a client once a month, I doubt I would want to either confirm or deny the relationship as well.

maybe IGE finally got served and is now going quiet for a bit.  For retooling.

I know someone who knows someone who... oh, you know the drill.

I heard, in a slightly more reliable than rumor fashion, that IGE isn't doing very well recently. They're getting severely undercut by the smaller, single-game-focused guys (those ones that advertize in tells/in game e-mails in WoW), and are even having trouble keeping gold in stock for purchase. The slightly more active bannings haven't helped matters, as gold prices in general have gone up; all in all it hasn't been a good quarter for them.

You mean IGE is being driven out of the market? Allow me to wipe a single tear.

I'm sure Savant was just a freelance PR consultant instead of an actual employee.

As for what IGE is doing? My guess is laundering money and luring little boys in to be Brock Pierce's sex slaves.

*deleted. freakin forum ate my long post for some reason*

Sooo... Savant is a shill for IGE's rent boy side business?  This is how horrible rumours get started.  Yes... right here.  In my post.

Dammit.

You heard that Savant was renting boys for IGE?

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/blackadder/gallery/images/two1_thumb.jpg)

Let me fix that for you.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/blackadder/gallery/images/two1_1024.jpg)

I don't want to know the exchange rate.

"prompt in-game service"?  How's that going to work?

In WoW gold or Plat?