Xfire Acquired By Former IGE Execs, Neglects To Keep People Who Made Xfire

Message that was sent globally to all logged-in Xfire users this afternoon (courtesy Geldonyetich in the comments on an earlier story):

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. — The Xfire Team

Message that was on the Xfire web site shortly afterward:

That would presumably be Chris Kirmse, founder and lead engineer behind Xfire.

After a while, that notice was finally replaced with news on the new owners, namely Titan Platform, soon to rename itself Xfire. Titan’s team includes several IGE veterans, including John Maffei, who stewarded the ZAM media network’s divorce from IGE, Dave Christensen, who was with SOE briefly after his IGE tenure (a move which I yelled about incoherently) and Brock Pierce, IGE’s founder, who threatened to sue me until I posted a picture of a kitten.

TechCrunch, unlike the rest of us, actually committed acts of journalism and talked to some of the folks involved.

We’ve just confirmed with Titan Gaming CEO John Maffei that they have acquired Xfire – the deal was signed just a couple of hours ago – but have not been able to pin down the exact purchase price.

Given the timing, it looks like Chris Kirmse and whomever walked out the door with him waited until the deal was signed and then publically did everything but tell his userbase to go install Raptr now — which would lead one to think that this was not the happiest of acquisitions. In any event, one suspects that Maffei is far happier to talk to a website covering new media acquisitions than gaming journalists who might actually ask about prior experiences.

So, yeah, this is going to be AWESOME!