Startup Live Gamer is aiming to bring some order to the online Wild West of real-money transactions for virtual goods. The company has launched what it describes as a publisher-supported secure platform for such transactions, and has already signed up the likes of Funcom, Sony Online Entertainment, 10Tacle Studios, Acclaim, GoPets and Ping0 Interactive.
The company is backed by $24 million in VC funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners and Pequot Ventures. The company wants to grab a slice of the estimated $1.8 billion virtual transactions market, with the blessing of MMOG publishers and virtual worlds companies, rather than working outside their terms of service, as president Andrew Schneider explains:
"Virtual item trading is already transforming the way people experience MMOGs and virtual worlds, but in its traditional underground context, the impact could be as easily negative as positive for a given player or world. An economy this large clearly needs a legitimate trading infrastructure that serves the needs of each of its millions of participants."
Digging around the company's website, one of the key features is the ability to carry out these transactions from within the worlds or games themselves, rather than forcing people to go to a separate website. That's a smart move, while Live Gamer is also touting its range of tools to help publishers manage their in-world economies.
Live Gamer website
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