Category: Video Games

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News Video Games

UPDATED: Turkish casual game producer Gamegos is rumored buyer of $500,000 domain Gamesforgirls.com

gamesgos

Gamesforgirls.com is taking top honors as the top-selling domain name in 2011 so far to date, nearly doubling the price of the next highest ranking sale – Action.com – which sold for $270,000 in early February. 

While the owner of the domain name gamesforgirls.com is guarded behind Private Whois after Sedo completed the transfer this week, a reader who goes by the name “Anthony James” tipped me off earlier today about who the buyer might be.

I eliminated Bill Kara of Hallpass Media as the buyer, after speaking to Bill last week over email. 

It’s rumored that the mystery buyer who paid $500,000 for the casual games domain is Gamegos, a Turkish game producer with more than 30 million monthly active users across its network of websites. 

I contacted Gamegos to ask for more information, but haven’t received a response.  So it remains speculation at this point.

According to the Casual Games industry news site, casualnews.com, Gamegos owns casual gaming portals like oyunlar1.com, games2girls.com and didigames.com.  Games2girls.com, based on a rough traffic estimate provided by Compete, receives well over a half a million unique visitors per month.  Same with didigames.com and other sites belonging to Gamegos.

It’s only a rumor for now, but Gamegos seems to be one of the best candidates.

Updated: A spokesman for Gamegos using the email address ‘info -at- games2girls.com, wrote me early this morning and confirmed the company purchased the domain.  There was no personal info provided in the email, but Gamegos appears to be a fairly private company, so you can judge the email for yourself below.

About GamesForGirls.com

Games2Girls.com, the first popular free girl games website, online with the
title “Games for Girls” since 2006, bought the domain name “gamesforgirls.com”
for $500.000.
Being the pioneer of girl games market, Games2Girls.com already has hundreds of
exclusive games for girls and keeps developing new games continuously.
The domain gamesforgirls.com will be used for a new project targeting young
girls. It will aim to expand the girl gaming market discovering new joys.

Regards,
Games2Girls.com

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News Video Games

Who paid $500,000 for Gamesforgirls.com, the top-selling domain so far in 2011?

Games for Girls

One thing is for sure: Bill Kara of Hallpass Media didn’t pay $500,000 USD for the casual games domain name, gamesforgirls.com. 

While the buyer may not be known as of yet, the seller is.  As pointed out by Jamie Zoch over at DotWeekly, what is known, is that the domain name was sold by Garry Chernoff, of NetIncome Ventures Inc, an established domain investment and web development company.

Casual gaming domain sales create buzz

Like the buzz the domain industry had in early 2010 after cookinggames.com sold for $350,000 to Bill Kara, the price paid for gamesforgirls.com in early 2011 is sure to be the topic of many discussions after the owner is revealed.

I contacted Bill Kara, the CEO of Hallpass Media, which operates one of the largest networks in the United States ) including Girlgames.com (a site roughly estimated by Compete to receive nearly 400,000 unique visitors per month), to see if he was the buyer – after speculation by many that he may have purchased the domain despite owning girlgames.com. 

And the answer was as I expected: No.   

So who paid $500K for gamesforgirls.com?

At the time of this story, the domain name still remains in Sedo’s Domain Transfer Escrow Service according to Whois, so we won’t know anything until the name is in the hands of the new owner. 

But you can bet after the new owner or website is revealed, it’ll be reported quickly.

Readers: Who do you think purchased the domain?

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Disputes News Trademarks Video Games WIPO

Zynga goes after ZyngaGiftcards.com and ZyngaWorld.com domain names

Zynga Gift Cards

Zynga has filed two domain name complaints concerning zyngagiftcards.com and zyngaworld.com with WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization. 

The complaints were filed today for ZyngaWorld.com and yesterday for ZyngaGiftcards.com. 

Zynga’s Domain Dispute Track Record

Zynga has had no problem winning domain disputes filed using the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, better known as UDRP. 

In all previous cases, the domain names were transferred from the respondent back to Zynga.  The list of domain names includes zynga-chips.com, zynga.cc, zyngachips.com, zyngapoker.com, buyzyngachips.net, cheapzyngachips.net, chips4zynga.com, yourzyngachips.com, and zyngachips4sell.com.

As TechCrunch reported in March 2010, Zynga rolled out gift cards at a number of major retailers in the U.S.  Though Zynga refers to them as “game cards“, they are essentially gift cards which can be used  for in-game currency to buy the items you want.

Zyngagiftcards.com is currently registered to Joanna Hewett according to Whois Records, and has been registered since December 2009.  Zyngaworld.com is registered to David Cahill of Australia. 

Oddly enough, Zynga doesn’t own zyngagamecards.com and hasn’t filed a dispute over the domain as of yet, even though it refers to its “gift cards” as “game cards”. 

The company also doesn’t own zyngaecards.com, online “game cards” that can be purchased and sent to users with a personal message.  What’s even stranger, is the domain name isn’t even registered at the time of this story, despite the number of abusive registrations the company regularly encounters.  But given Zynga’s success at WIPO, hopefully people will learn some lessons, and avoid these types of registrations.

Though the company will likely win these domain disputes and have the names transferred, they might not be as lucky with the trademark dispute over Blingville, which so far has backfired after Blingville responded with a lawsuit, and thousands have lined up to test and play the soon-to-be released Facebook game.

[Update 1: On March 21, 2011, the WIPO panel ordered the domain name zyngaworld.com transferred to Zynga.  The dispute for zyngagiftcards.com was terminated, after the owner agreed to turn over the name to Zynga.]

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News Trademarks Video Games

Threats by Zynga backfire as thousands line up online to play Blingville on Facebook

Blingville

Recently, it came to light over at TechDirt, a technology news blog, that Zynga sent a cease & desist letter to Blingville LLC, the West Virginia company that runs Blingville, an up and coming Facebook game that is currently in Beta testing.

Zynga’s threats against the company, which resulted in Blingville responding with a lawsuit (which can be read here), appear to have backfired at this point.

While no decision has been made as of yet in the lawsuit filed by Blingville, thousands are lining up to test the game online, partly thanks to the press Blingville has received by dozens of technology blogs and news sites, including domainer blogs The Domains and Domain Gang.  

I signed up earlier today to become a Beta tester, and was welcomed by a message stating, “Beta Testing in Progress: Your #20,992 in line to test Blingville.”  According to the message, testing will last a couple more weeks as the game is prepared for a full launch on Facebook.

Zynga/Ville Trademark developments

People have their own opinions on what the outcome should be when it comes to Zynga vs Blingville.

Whatever the case, there are more “ville” trademarks not owned by Zynga, than there are trademarks actually owned by the social gaming development company. 

In fact, earlier this month, Build-a-Bear applied for trademarks on Bearville.com and Bearville.  The company owns and operates Build-a-Bearville online, an extension of the in-store experience it offers to customers.

While Blingville LLC, hasn’t put out too much information, the company does have a subscription-based newsletter that aims to keep fans and supporters connected.  The company also registered additional domain names related to its soon-to-be released game, including BlingvilleCash.com, which re-directs to Blingville.com.

The last public statement by the company was posted on the company’s Facebook page and read: ” Blingville would like to sincerely thank all of our loyal fans for their support in our defense against Zynga! Your comments are greatly appreciated!”

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News Video Games

Nearly a month after acquiring domain name, Microsoft starts redirecting Kinect.com to Xbox web page

Xbox Kinect

Earlier this month, I was the first to report that Microsoft acquired the domain name Kinect.com for its controller-free add-on for the Xbox. 

However, if you typed the URL, kinect.com, into your browser’s address bar in the past 30 or so days, you were taken to Bing’s search engine results page for the keyword “Kinect.”.  The exact URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=kinect&form=MSSRPD

Today, Microsoft released its second-quarter results which were helped by the success of its Kinect game device. 

“Sales at the company’s entertainment-and-devices division jumped 55% on the success of the company’s Kinect motion-based controller, which were a hit during the holiday season and boosted sales of Xbox 360 consoles. Operating profit for the division has surpassed $1 billion so far this fiscal year.”, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Though the change looks to have taken place in the past week, redirecting the domain name Kinect.com from Bing’s search engine results to the Xbox Kinect page appears to coincide with the release of the company’s second quarter results.