Forums > MobyGames > Another MG ownership change?
vileyn0id_8088 (21040) on 11/26/2021 7:28 PM · Permalink · Report
Should I be surprised that there's nothing about this in the News sections or here on the forums?
I'm referring to the little update here:
Paris, France, November 23, 2021 at 6:00pm CET – Atari SA and its subsidiaries (the “Atari Group”), one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers, today announced an up to US$3.5 Million strategic investment in Antstream Limited and a related option to purchase the assets of Mobygames, Limited, including the Mobygames website and database. The investment in Antstream Limited was made pursuant to a convertible loan agreement that can be converted into equity of Antstream Limited in a future financing, with an initial investment of US$500,000. The option to purchase the assets of Mobygames is at a purchase price of US$1.5 Million and may be concluded by the end of March, 2022.
...and this comment appended to last month's podcast about Mobygames, explaining the background (which also comes as news to me):
ADDENDUM: 19 OCT 2021. Since I published this episode, I've learnt that the retro game streaming service Antstream now owns a majority stake in MobyGames. Neither the terms of the sale nor the reasons nor even the fact that it happened have been acknowledged publicly by the company. My sources indicate this may have concluded some months ago, but a UK company filing suggests that the process likely began last year.
Now, I'll assume that this is old news to those of you on discord, but the discussions that go on there don't exactly get archived in a way that's accessible to the outside world. So it'd be nice to have some transparency here.
Flies in the 2010s, ants in the 2020s... what's up?
Pseudo_Intellectual (66362) on 11/26/2021 11:55 PM · Permalink · Report
It's well worth discussing, but really the only parties whose opinions matter probably aren't at liberty to chat much on the subject. Understandably we're all a bit gun shy after the Gamefly fiasco. If we make it through this round of murders and executions unscathed, I think it would make sense for us to look into somehow integrating with the Internet Archive, making it the custodian of our data. (And just imagine the synergy, if our entries lived on the same server as the Internet Arcade!)
Cavalary (11445) on 11/27/2021 1:41 PM · Permalink · Report
Yeah, apparently there was a little comment from Reed on Discord, say those who go there, I don't. And there is a thread, also just brought up by a user who stumbled into the info, on the approvers forum. But news? Heck, even now there's no official acknowledgement of the fact that MG is owned by Antstream, so what'd you expect? :/
Rik Hideto (473489) on 11/27/2021 3:04 PM · Permalink · Report
Copy/paste from a forum thread:
Blue Flame Labs has been cancelled in the Californian registry in December 2020...
...because in July 2020, Antstream formed a holding company in the UK called "MobyGames Limited" of which they're the 75% owner, with Reed owning the rest. (this link also has the incorporation PDF for download)
And at the very end of their latest financial report for 2020, Antstream confirms to have bought "game database Moby Games".
Pseudo_Intellectual (66362) on 11/28/2021 11:42 PM · Permalink · Report
Those things get updated about as often as the Bible does.
