Xfire - History

History

Xfire, Inc. was founded in 2002 by Dennis "Thresh" Fong (former Chief Gaming Officer; former U.S. Champion of Quake), Mike Cassidy (former CEO), Max Woon (former CTO) and David Lawee (former COO). The company was formerly known as Ultimate Arena but changed its name to Xfire when its desktop client Xfire became more popular and successful than its gaming website.

Xfire, the desktop client code-named Scoville, was first developed in 2003 by Garrett Blythe, Chris Kirmse (current General Manager), Mike Judge, and others. The full credits can be found in About under the Help menu in the desktop client.

On April 25, 2006, Xfire was acquired by Viacom in a US$102 million deal.

In September 2006, Sony was misinterpreted to have announced that Xfire would be used for the PlayStation 3. What they actually meant was that only one PS3 game, Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, was to use some of the features with more game support planned for the future.

On May 7, 2007, Xfire announced they have over 7 million registered users.

On June 13, 2007, Mike Cassidy (former CEO, co-founder) departed the company to work for venture capital firm Benchmark Capital. Adam Boyden (VP of Business Development & Marketing) was assigned to take his place and manage the company for a temporary period.

On August 2, 2010, Xfire was acquired by Titan Gaming. At 22:16 GMT, the following message was broadcast to Xfire users "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". A few minutes later the Xfire website displayed a message stating it was temporarily taken offline. When it came back a few minutes later, the news column on the left had the following content: "August 2, 2010—Xfire has been purchased by another company. Most of the team that has brought you Xfire for the last 6 years is leaving, including me. We've enjoyed our time and I personally am sad that I was only able to do 127 releases. Good bye and game on! - Chris". It was soon replaced with this message: "August 2, 2010--Titan Gaming Acquires Xfire Titan will be taking on the Xfire name, with a focus towards ongoing innovation in the gaming space. The Xfire services will continue uninterrupted for its users. Xfire redefined how gamers communicate, Titan intends to build upon this tradition and utilize the Xfire platform to help gaming companies better engage their users. We look forward to continuing and expanding upon the Xfire service. --- Raincrow"