GameFly

GameFly, Inc.
Private
Founded April 15, 2002 (2002-04-15)
Founders David Hodess (CEO & President)
Sean Spector (Co-Founder & VP of Business development and Marketing)
Jung Suh (Co-Founder & VP of Content and Strategic Alliances)
Headquarters Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Slogan Games Delivered
Website gamefly.com

GameFly is an American online video game rental subscription service that specializes in providing games for game consoles and handheld game consoles.

The business model of GameFly is similar to the DVD-by-mail subscription service Netflix and Blockbuster online. GameFly sends games to subscribers for a monthly fee.

History

In early 2002, Sean Spector and Jung Suh partnered with founding CEO Toby Lenk to start GameFly. GameFly later received venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital.[1] In February 2009, GameFly acquired the gaming news and community site Shacknews, along with its download and streaming video sites.[2] It was reported in February 2011 that GameFly had acquired MobyGames.[3] Despite filing plans in February 2010 for an initial public offering, GameFly remains a privately owned company as of 2016.[4]

Purchase of Direct2Drive

In 2011, Gamefly announced that they had acquired Direct2Drive, an online distribution service previously owned by IGN. Direct2Drive later merged with GameFly; subscribers that had both D2D and GameFly accounts were migrated to a single account.

Shortly after the merger, GameFly introduced a new 'GameFly Client', which combined the services previously offered by Direct2Drive and GameFly individually; the client came out of beta on November 8, 2012, and allows direct download and installation of PC games, as well as the rental of games without visiting the GameFly website itself.

References

  1. "Gamefly - How it works".
  2. Morris, Chris (February 4, 2009). "GameFly 'Shacks' Up". Forbes. Retrieved 2009-02-04.
  3. Kyle Orland (2011-02-07). "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2013-11-14.
  4. Matt Krantz (2013-04-10). "Ask Matt: Did GameFly ever go public?". USA Today. Retrieved 2013-11-14.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, April 20, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.