Xfire purchased by 'skill-based gaming' firm Titan

Earlier today, Xfire, creator of the gaming-centric chat/matchmaking client bearing its name, announced to its nearly 17 million registered users that it had been purchased by an unknown entity. "Xfire was bought by new owners today. Most of the team that has built Xfire over the last six years is leaving. We enjoyed working for you for the last 127 releases and wish we could stay to create the next 127. Good bye, good luck, and game on," a message from "The Xfire Team" posted on the company's website read.

Following an afternoon of speculation as to the buyer's identity -- which, at one point, was listed as 3D Realms on Xfire's Wikipedia page -- it has been confirmed that Titan Gaming, a Los Angeles, Calif. based developer of "skill-based gaming" technology (i.e., competitive gaming for money), was behind the purchase. Titan will be "taking on the Xfire name, with a focus towards ongoing innovation in the gaming space," according to a message on its site, adding that, "the Xfire services will continue uninterrupted for its users" and that it intends to use the service to "help gaming companies better engage their users and monetize their games."

The move appears to have been made to better position the company to compete with similar services, such as upstart Virgin Gaming. Exactly how today's events will affect Xfire's community going forward and what we can expect in terms of specific partnerships is unclear, but we've contacted Titan to find out more.

[Thanks, Jevon]

Reader Comments (28)

"help gaming companies better engage their users"
YEAH RIGHT

"and monetize their games."
That's more I like it. You're not fooling anyone.

Also, competitive gaming for money is crap. Real gamers don't do it for the glory or money. They do it for fun.

@Themoreyouknow

Oh they do it for fun and money.

The ultimate goal for any hardcore gamer is to be a professional at it and be able to live off their love of playing games.

@KinseySS; "The ultimate goal for any hardcore gamer is to be a professional at it and be able to live off their love of playing games."

No, not really.

@KinseySS

You mean the ultimate goal for a total tool. There is no such thing as "professional gaming." The very idea is laughable. The closest thing to professional gamer is a QA Tester, as they play games professionally.

@KinseySS
"The ultimate goal for any hardcore gamer is to be a professional at it and be able to live off their love of playing games. "

No. The goal of a hardcore gamer is to play games that put the most focus on balance and skill, while still having a blast. The dream is to play with a bunch of people who respect the game and its awesomeness. The fun is playing competitively while still keeping things friendly. And to keep having fun in the game no matter how old it is. My favorite is Tribes 2. It's old and not too many new people join the community. But the same people play it every week, and joke, taunt, remember, respect, and try to kill one another.

The goal of some competitive gamers is to be the next Fatality, but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) that fad has pretty much passed. People just can't make that much money playing video games right now; the sponsorship money isn't there.

It may pick up again one day, but the US has pretty much proven that it has no interest in watching people play video games on TV. Watching people play games will never be as big here as it is in Korea.

@BananaBoat
I wish regular competitive gaming was available in my area (San Francisco). Some place to play games competitively for cash. Put $10-20 into a pot for a chance at a big prize.

I usually like to play games for fun, but I also think playing for cash would be fun too :)

Sweet! My tip was picked up! :)

Don't use xfire, but I feel for the people that do.

It was great for Warhammer Online, until War got old and boring - which was rather quick.

Maybe Valve can hire some of the ex-Xfire employees to help make the Steam friend's lists more robust.

@Sinkwater
Now thats an idea I can back.

A video recording feature embedded within the Steam overlay would be cool.

@Sinkwater

How about a basic screenshot function in Steam? I like XFire screenies for the rare PC games that won't take screenshots. I'm looking at you, both Mass Effect games, who lack the function despite having a screenshot folder in your main folder!

@Sinkwater

This, this and this! It would be so nice if we could be able to message people who aren't on our friends list or that we don't share a group. Why should we have to send them a invite before being able to message them.

I hope to God that they don't f*** up my Xfire in the long run. Screw them >:(

@Schlecht I agree with this sentiment. Xfire is integral in the CoH community I am part of.

Been using Xfire for 5 of those 6 years on a daily basis. Excellent program with many useful features (Fraps replacement). I only wish that Titan doesn't go about screwing it up like many companies do when they purchase a name.

God I hope they don't screw it up...

I wanna know more about this part:

"Most of the team that has built Xfire over the last six years is leaving."

Did the XFire guys quit in protest, or did Titan fire them? Either way, it's bullcrap.

Worst comes to worst, everyone moves to raptr, which is shaping up to be better anyway.

@(Unverified) you're right about that

I used to use xfire, but then most of my friends just moved to only using steam - which I do now (linking all my games through steam).

I still use Gfire via pidgin to chat with the few friends who only use xfire, but I dont use xfire for its intended purpose anymore (chat while in games).

@Rahabib I still use xfire for that but I primarily use it to stream video to ustream.

Ever since Steam got a friend's list feature a couple years ago I stopped using Xfire.

I don't see myself using anything else than the adequate Steam friends feature.

@RogueJedi86 Titan let go of all but 4 people

Time to move to Raptr people. =)

@Gasaraki Especially since it imports your Xfire stats :)

Xfire purchased by 'skill-based gaming' firm Titan

Reader Comments (28)

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 12:35AM Themoreyouknow said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 12:47AM KinseySS said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 1:18AM Dance Love Pop said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 1:37AM Anticrawl said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 1:41AM Themoreyouknow said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 11:30AM BananaBoat said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 8:04PM GuardianLegend said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 12:52AM FlareSama said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 1:25AM KillaPat said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 1:38AM Anticrawl said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 1:44AM Sinkwater said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 2:21AM Vexx said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 4:33AM einhanderkiller said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 8:07AM RogueJedi86 said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 11:14AM pandaSmore said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 1:54AM Schlecht said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 2:04PM toastix said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 2:23AM MrClickerson said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 4:05AM GCountach said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 4:17AM RogueJedi86 said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 5:19AM Faemir said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 8:13AM rapsody23 said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 11:02AM Rahabib said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 2:06PM toastix said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 12:38PM BoBsS said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 2:16PM Lusidd said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 3:03PM Gasaraki said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2010 5:44PM PillowFight said

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