Xfire Purchased, Team Leaving

phorce phed and several other readers sent news that a system notification was sent out this evening through the Xfire IM client, to wit: "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." According to Wikipedia, the new owner is 3D Realms.

Comments

Don't rely on wiki too much..

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've heard it's been edited multiple times since the announcement and both times was a different name of the buyer. Just wait until something official turns up.

Re:Don't rely on wiki too much..

[crossmr]

You do realize who posted this story right? If you went by his house and scrawled "Aliens ate Sarah Palin using the new X75 fork from IBM" on his sidewalk in chalk it'd be here the next day as gospel.

no buyout.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

At 127 releases; they were on the verge of an 8 bit signed integer overflow. I suspect one of the managers panicked and convinced the CEO to sell before they had a chance to launch another and have to start over from scratch anyway.

Re:no buyout.

[ben_kelley]

It sure sounds plausible, but do you want to know the real truth?? The 8 bit integer overflow is still years away. And technologies like Integer-NAT will push it out even further.

Re:no buyout.

[MBGMorden]

Great subtle dry wit on IPv4/CIDR/NAT :)

Yeah . . . I can just imagine you as a kid.

"Hahaha. That joke's awesome! It's funny because the boy yelled 'Wolf!' but nobody believed him after lying about it so many times. Brilliant!" ;)

What is up with this site lately?

[WankersRevenge]

As of late, Slashdot seems to be phoning it in at best. I've been following the site for years and I've never seen such an apathetic disregard to both the site and the community from the editors. Lately, stories have either been incredibly sensational or just downright retarded. Or hell, even troll'ish. I'm wondering if Taco and company should just hang it up and try something new. Give people with some fire in their belly a shot. I don't know ... when you're citing wikipedia as a breaking news source, you gotta be wondering if what you're scraping is the bottom of the barrel, or the pile of shit underneath it.

And by the way ... it's all right to change the Microsoft icon. It was funny twelve years ago. It's kind of retarded now. Especially since the company now looks to be run by the three stooges after a weekend bender.

Re:What is up with this site lately?

[wowbagger]

Considering that Slashdot didn't even bother to report on this New York Times story about Slashdot (even though it appeared in the Firehose twice (at least), but they DID report on The Science of Caddyshack (in Idle), are you surprised?

(oh, BTW mods - I really don't give a shit about karma anymore - that's how big a "joke" Slashdot has become. Prove me right about this place swirling the drain....)

Re:What is up with this site lately?

[NeutronCowboy]

Some interesting excerpts from the article:
"However this relatively narrow focus means that Slashdot has not grown to have broader appeal, like StumbleUpon and Digg. "
"In addition, Slashdot has historically favored stories submitted from traditional media, over 'new media' such as blogs. Both of these things have made Slashdot seem behind the times and a bit too closed minded."
"Likewise, library student @battmutler commented that Slashdot "seems to always be 12-36 hours behind the curve.""
"However the impact that this community has on the social Web is minimal, according to Woopra's statistics. "

Seriously? The issue is that Slashdot is 12 hours behind "the curve"? It's impact is minimal on the social web? It's not Digg? That's just fucking retarded.

Let me summarize why I read Slashdot and not Digg or random blogs: I don't care if I'm behind 12 hours. I don't care about reading stories found at digg and StumbleUpon. I don't care to have an impact on the social web.

I read Slashdot for two reasons: it gives me a broad overview of what's going in topics I find interesting, and the commentary is just about as good as ever - or as bad, depending on your take.

Re:What is up with this site lately?

[raddan]

I think you bring up some an important point: /. is not about breaking news. It may have been back in the earlier days (when tech reporting was still largely on paper), but I don't think that ever was the focus. The thing that still draws me here, after ten years of reading, is the community.

The NYT article contends that /. has lost traffic without providing a single shred of evidence to support this. Ten years ago, social media was largely unheard of, except for the few geeks who came from places like USENET or BBS scene. I think /.'s base is still largely those people. So the site doesn't draw the crowds. BFD. That's why I come here. I like that narrow focus. The instant ./ tries to follow in Digg's footsteps, I'm outta here. Anyway not growing and losing are two completely different things, NYT!

We've probably lost a few great commentators over the years, but it's likely not because ./ isn't trendy enough for them. It's because the stories aren't nerdy enough anymore. Hey editors: we want more science stories. Challenge us. I'd personally like to see ./ pick up more cutting-edge research (like computer science and computer engineering journal articles), because that's when the broad base of knowledge in the readership really shows, and where ./'s value is head and shoulders above the other "social media" sites out there.

Re:What is up with this site lately?

[PopeRatzo]

The issue is that Slashdot is 12 hours behind "the curve"?

Can I let you all in on a little secret?

"The Curve" does not exist. It's a concept created by press agents and PR flacks to try to force media outlets to jump on their bogus stories before taking the time to make sure they're not complete bullshit. It's a far sight more important to get it right than to get it fast, but our corporate media has gotten it backwards. The worst part is that they try to cover up their incompetence with assertions like "I had to go with it, it was breaking news" or "we didn't want to be scooped by our competitor".

Have any of you not read a superior in-depth, accurate article on a topic because some tabloid had gotten to it first with a lot of crap? Do any of you read Slashdot because you expect to be among the first to read about a "breaking story"?

Now there's even a further reason why people are pushing "breaking stories": because then they can get out in front and try to shape the way the story is told. They can get away with that because most people are pretty dumb. So if someone comes out with a breaking story, let's say that "So and so, who is black, admits to being a racist and is cheered by the audience, which was also black" it's not going to matter that the whole thing was completely fabricated, because it confirmed a bunch of stupid people's small-mindedness (and small-minded people just love to have their small-mindedness confirmed and affirmed). But if you're someone who maybe tries to be aware of what's going on in the world, and you see this story picked up by the number one cable news network (this is all purely hypothetical) and then repeated on the numbers two and three networks because they don't want to be scooped, and you buy into the story, you're going to look like a complete horse's ass when you find out that it was all bullshit to begin with. You're going to feel used, and sullied and well, kind of stupid for being in such a goddamn hurry that you'd pay any attention to the number one cable news network to begin with (hypothetically).

So you know what? Fuck "the curve". You don't have to be ahead of it any more than you have to be "outside the box" or "in the know" or "in touch" because none of those things matter as long as you're capable of a little discernment.

Re:Why bother with seperate widgets?

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't really familiar with what Xfire is, are you?

Actually I'd never heard of it, and so had no idea at all, but thanks to the excellent summary I now have only almost no idea at all.

wikipedia is not a good news source

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodbye, Au Revoir, Da Svida, Auf Wiedersehen
2010-08-02 5:52 PM PDT
Xfire has been sold by MTV / Viacom to Titan Gaming, a startup. The vast majority of the remaining staff has been laid off.

There is no official press release at this time.

As a Web Developer who has been with this company full-time for 4+ years, I'm sad to have to pack up all of the posters from my office walls, though MTV has been trying to sell us for some time now.

I received about 800 messages in the minutes after the system broadcast went out. If I don't respond to your messages, please understand that it's nothing personal.

The Xfire service itself, as far as I know, will continue. A million people a day log into the Xfire client and FOUR million unique visitors use the website each week. No one in their right mind, in this author's humble opinion, would walk away from that kind of userbase by terminating the program.

Thank you all for your support!

I have always believed in Xfire, and our community of users has played a big part in that. Together, we made Gaming History.

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