According to a report at TechCrunch, Electronic Arts has agreed to purchase Rupture, a social network focused on gaming, for something in the neighborhood of $30 million. The startup was founded by Joe Baudanza and Shawn Fanning, he of Napster and VW commercial fame. The company’s core product is a social network that mostly catered to players of World of Warcraft. The site has long been in beta, and since it never launched publicly, it’s clear that EA is not after the user base of this particular network.
Given the dominance of Activision Blizzard in the MMO space, this provides EA with a way of getting in on the MMO game. With the forthcoming Warhammer MMO, it’s possible that EA could use the technology from Rupture to provide just the sort of complete experience that could compete with World of Warcraft.
This does give Shawn Fanning the kind of money that someone of his notoriety surely feels is his due:
Rupture had previously raised only $2.5 to $3 million in an angel round last summer from investors including Ron Conway, Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, and Baseline Ventures. Although this is not Fanning’s first startup, it is his first real payday. Napster helped change the music industry, but it went bankrupt doing so. And although he just sold his second startup SnoCap to Imeem, that was more of a mercy acquisition. It is doubtful that he made more than a few pennies on that sale. You know what they say. Third time’s the charm.
Maybe the social network will eventually be released to the public now, right? That sort of money certainly eases development.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I truly feel sorry for the future of this game. EA has shown they do not know how to deal or handle any online gaming by their failures in THE SIMS ONLINE. They failed their subscribers there, it won’t be long before they fail this group as well.