Virtual item company Live Gamer, which has been helping to legitimize player-to-player virtual economies, has acquired Twofish, which provides virtual economy data solutions for game developers. Live Gamer also recently purchased N-Cash, and together with Twofish (and its core product, Twofish Elements), Live Gamer now believes it has "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."
“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.”
Adding Twofish to Live Gamer yields the combined company over 70 live customers handling over 3 million transactions per month. Live Gamer said it's already integrating the new technologies and expects to roll out new initiatives in the coming months, according to Davis.
Along with the acquisition, Twofish Board members, Michael Kim from Rustic Canyon Ventures and Twofish co-founder Sean Ryan, will join the Live Gamer Board of Directors.
