Curse, Inc.

Curse, Inc.
Subsidiary
Industry VoIP, PC gaming communities, E-sports
Founded 2006
Founder Hubert Thieblot
Headquarters Huntsville, Alabama, United States[1]
Key people
 Michael Comperda
Chief Technical Officer & President of Voice
Fabien Bonte
VP, Content
Vincent Cellini
VP, Finance
Donovan Duncan
President of Media
Jack Inscoe
VP, Product
Franck Thieblot
VP, Monetization
Shane Wilson
VP, Sales
Owner Amazon.com
(via Twitch Interactive)
Website CurseInc.com

Curse, Inc. is an online game portal and network of gaming websites founded by Hubert Thieblot in 2006. The company is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, and has offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Brighton, UK, and Berlin, Germany. Claiming to be the "number one resource for core online gamers,"[2][3] Quantcast estimated monthly unique traffic in 2013 in excess of 30 million visitors.[4] Curse has several primary functions, the most notable of which include an add-on and modification service called Curse Client[5] for such games as World of Warcraft, Rift, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Terraria, Kerbal Space Program, and Minecraft, a collection of over 1000 gaming wikis known as Gamepedia, and a Voice Over IP (VOIP) service called Curse Voice.

Curse formerly sponsored a professional teams, known collectively as Team Curse, that competed in League of Legends and Call of Duty,[6][7] which in addition to various high-profile wins have garnered sponsorship from companies such as Nissan,[8][9][10] Alienware,[11][12] and Cooler Master.[13][14][15] In January 2015 Team Curse merged with Team Liquid under the name of the latter organization.

While Curse initially offered modifications and add-ons alone through their Curse-Beta website, offerings have expanded to include Wiki services, the Curse client, CurseForge, CurseVoice, Union for Gamers, BukkitDev, and in-house content produced for YouTube.

On August 16, 2016, Curse announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Amazon.com Inc. via its subsidiary Twitch Interactive for an undisclosed amount.

History

2006–2010

Curse was born out of founder Hubert Thieblot's "hardcore" love of World of Warcraft.[16] After leaving school, Thieblot began to turn his passion into a business, launching CurseBeta in 2006,[17] offering up add-ons and modifications.[18] In short order, the site exponentially increased in traffic and popularity.[19][20] In 2007, a Series A round of venture capital investing led by AGF Private Equity granted Curse $5 million USD, and in 2009, Curse disclosed an addition Series B round led by Ventech Capital, AGF Private Equity, and SoftTech VC (Jeff Clavier) in the amount of $6 million USD, bringing total funding for that year (with an additional $3 million USD in revenue) to $11 million.[21] As the funding for Curse increased, so did its offerings, as it proceeded to develop several high-profile sites in-house,[22][23] while acquiring larger sites with already established communities and content.[24]

2010–2014

In 2011, Inc. 500 ranked Curse Inc. as the 405th fastest growing company in the United States,[25] and the San Francisco Business Times ranked it 22nd in their list of the "Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies in the San Francisco Bay Area".[26][27] On December 14, 2012, Curse released its much-anticipated Gamepedia[28] wiki service, designed as a direct competitor to Wikia. The service was launched out of beta testing with 90 wikis, including sites for Minecraft, DotA 2, World of Warcraft, and more, with 244,332 articles from over 410,000 users.[29]

In April 2012, Ernst & Young named Thieblot as a semifinalist in their "Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year" program for Northern California.[30] By June 2012, Curse's monthly worldwide traffic was reported by Quantcast as being in excess of 21 million unique visitors.[31] On June 26, 2013, Curse announced in a press conference that it would relocated their chief headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama, leaving their sales office in San Francisco.[32] On May 7, 2014, Curse introduced Curse Profiles,[33] an integrated social media system in Gamepedia offering a wide range of features. The service allows users to add wikis to their favorites list, earn Wikipoints and Levels, display personal statistics (such as global editing leaderboards, amount of edits, etc.), and change and set global preferences; the service also introduced a new user page system, a change from the MediaWiki standard user pages, including a new commenting system. Curse has expressed a long-term interest in expanding content and communities as their prime concern.[34][35]

Acquisition by Amazon

On August 16, 2016, Amazon.com Inc. announced via subsidiary Twitch Interactive that it would acquire Curse, Inc. for an undisclosed amount.[36]

Curse sites and services

Curse Client and CurseForge

Curse Client is an add-on and modification management service from Curse, with current support for World of Warcraft, Runes of Magic, Rift, World of Tanks, Skyrim, and Minecraft.[37] The client functions as a lightweight alternative to traditional add-on management tools, and features synchronization across multiple personal computers, add-on setting backups, and a privately developed security system. The client is supported by a website called CurseForge,[38] which allows for the uploading and reviewing of plugins, add-ons, and modifications.

Curse Voice

Curse Voice is a Voice over IP (VOIP) client produced in-house by Curse.[39] Intended to replace other VOIP solutions for games such as League of Legends, the client boasts a robust feature set, including an in-game voice overlay, an auto-match making service for automatically connecting you to the members of your team, and the use of URL links to join sessions. The client was originally rejected by Riot Games,[40] who felt that the timers included for various spawn times could be considered cheating, but Curse has since removed the offending content[41] and brought the software in line with the terms of service for League of Legends.[42] The German version is still in the beta-phase. In 2015, Curse Voice initiated a PR campaign to show users, developers and publishers all of the benefits that the service had to offer. The service boasted how its safety features could help prevent users from getting swatted with Curse's CTO explaining how this was possible in an interview with Polygon.[43] Other publications such as IGN,[44] Gamecrate,[45] and Yahoo News[46] to name a few picked up the story. On May 6, Curse reported on the amazing growth of its VoIP service on GameSpot[47] and Game Informer[48] as it prepared to show off the service at E3 2015. In June 2015, Curse Voice made its way to not only PC, but Mac[49] and mobile,[50] giving users more ways to use the service while on the go or at home. Gamers started to take note of all the great features that Curse Voice has to offer and publications like Kotaku[51] and PC Gamer[52] recommended using the service while playing online games like League of Legends (LoL). Consequentially, on July 7, SEC reports[53] revealed that Riot Games[54] had invested $30 million in Curse which is the company behind LoL but no further details were revealed at the time.[55][56] The company had stated that they wanted to help games improve their in-game chat[57] and many gamers speculated if maybe this was the case with the recent investment.[58] Curse Voice has been proven to improve a game's community according to recent interviews with Smite[59] and Robocraft[60][61] alongside the release of the company's whitepaper.[62] With all of these big gains in the Curse Voice Client, Curse officially announced the opening of a brand new headquarters for their VoIP service on September 10 to Irvine, California.[63][64][65] It is no surprise with all of the recent success by Curse headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama that Bloomberg would name the city one of "The Unlikely Cities That Will Power The U.S. Economy." [66]

BukkitDev

One of the larger sites in the CurseForge network, BukkitDev is a collection of Minecraft plugins for the Bukkit development platform, a platform which has become the de facto standard for Minecraft plugins[67] within the last few years. As of May 2014, BukkitDev hosts 13,570 plugins and 8,337 unique users.[68] The Bukkit system has proven so effective and widespread, that on February 28, 2012, Mojang, the makers of Minecraft, hired the developers to improve Minecraft's support of server and client modifications and plugins.[69]

Kerbal CurseForge

On May 6, 2014, CurseForge introduced Kerbal CurseForge as an official repository of modifications and add-ons for the popular game Kerbal Space Program[70] On May 6, 2014, developers Squad announced the partnership;[71] Squad COO Adrian Goya said of the service, “Modders have helped make Kerbal Space Program a more open, more rewarding game experience for our players. Curse is an important partner because their team is passionate and experienced in caring for and growing online game communities, such as our amazing playerbase for Kerbal Space Program.”

Additionally, Curse's Author Platform Evangelist Bryan McLemore[72] stated, "We've got a great platform and a tremendous team that will be supporting the amazing modders for Kerbal Space Program. We also expect the millions of gamers who frequent Curse every month to see Kerbal Space Program as a great addition to our existing community." Kerbal CurseForge already boasts 94,300 downloads from its central repository.[73]

Curse Network

Curse owns and operates multiple high-traffic gaming websites, including Marriland, Hearthpwn, MMO-Champion, Arena Junkies, Reign of Gaming, LoL Pro, Minecraft Forums, Minecraft.fr, Guild Wars 2 Guru, and FPS General. Curse has also acquired the first person shooter statistics and science website Symthic which focuses on the statistical analysis of data from FPS games, including such details as weight, accuracy, and weapon drift. Curse partnered in 2014 with GOG.com to provide a free game from their library for premium Curse members.[74]

Gamepedia

On December 14, 2012, Curse launched Gamepedia, a wiki hosting platform dedicated to games and written by gamers. The site has since increased in popularity, with over 1000 wikis, and, as of July 2016, 842,621 contributors, 2,961,847 articles and 20,160,852 visitors a month.[75] Gamepedia hosts a number of official wikis, which are endorsed and supported by the game developers themselves. High-profile wikis such as The Official Witcher Wiki, the Official Minecraft Wiki, The Official Terraria Wiki, The Official ARK: Survival Evolved Wiki, DoTA2 Wiki, and Leaguepedia have hundreds of thousands of edits across thousands of accounts.

Union for Gamers

Starting in March 2012, Curse partnered with YouTube content producer and Athene for a YouTube partnership program,[76][77] offering a wide range of features and tools.[78]

Curse has stated that the Union for Gamers has a "user-first approach", offering 90% revenue share (where the content producer receives 90% of video profits), a non-capped contract (there is no maximum amount of money that could be paid out to content producers, unlike capped contracts, where, regardless of the amount your video earns, you can only earn up to a certain amount), no lock-in (content producers are free to terminate their contract whenever they choose), and no requirements for upload schedules or Curse endorsements.[79]

Union for Gamers also offers several tools to content producers, arranged in a dashboard format.[80] The dashboard includes summary boxes which track income, video data, referrals, and previous month comparisons, and a graph feature for revenue and traffic comparison. Tied into the dashboard is a referral system, allowing for additional income to be passively generated by referring parties. Additionally, Curse provides content producers with a knowledge database and support system, exclusive access to Curse logos and video clips,

YouTube

Curse also produces video in-house for their official YouTube channel. The lineup includes Curse Weekly Roundup, the Minecraft Update, the WoW Weekly Recap, the League Update, and the Pokémon Update. Curse also provides live coverage of game industry events including the Penny Arcade Expo, Gamescom, MineCon, BlizzCon, and the Eve Online Fanfest.

Curse historically broadcast livestreamed content on their Own3D channel until Own3D ceased operations as a company on January 31, 2013.[81]

Team Curse

Main article: Team Curse

League of Legends

Because of new sponsorship sale rules for the League of Legends Championship Series, Team Curse was required to change its name.[82] Team Liquid acquired the League of Legends roster, as well as every other eSports player supported by the organization.

Final roster

Nationality ID Name
 Venezuela Quas Diego Ruiz
 United States IWillDominate Christian Rivera
 South Korea FeniX Kim Jae-hoon
 South Korea Piglet Chae Gwang-jin
 United States Xpecial Alex Chu

References

  1. ↑ Berry, Lucy (27 June 2013). "Curse to relocate from San Francisco to Huntsville". The Huntsville Times. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  2. ↑ "Curse, Inc.: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Investing.businessweek.com. 2014-06-30. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  3. ↑ "Curse Inc. Reaches 21 Million Unique Visitors Per Month". Globenewswire.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  4. ↑ "Our Company - Curse Inc". Curse.com. 2014-05-14. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  5. ↑ "Client". Curse.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  6. ↑ "League of Legends - Divisions". Teamcurse.net. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  7. ↑ John Gaudiosi (7 August 2012). "First Look Inside The Curse League Of Legends Beverly Hills Gaming House". Forbes.
  8. ↑ "Nissan enters eSports arena with team sponsorship". GamesIndustry.biz.
  9. ↑ "News Archive - Team Liquid - Professional Gaming Organization". Teamcurse.net. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140515092030/http://na.alienwarearena.com/groups/curse/. Archived from the original on May 15, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  12. ↑ John Gaudiosi (20 March 2013). "Dell Invests In League Of Legends Team Curse With Alienware Sponsorship". Forbes.
  13. ↑ Cooler Master Co., Ltd. "Cooler Master Gaming » Home".
  14. ↑ "CM Storm, by Cooler Master, is now sponsoring Team Curse!". YouTube. 18 February 2013.
  15. ↑ "& Cooler Master Agree to 2-Year Extension on Team Sponsorship". Curse.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  16. ↑ "Curse Raises $6 Million As It Looks To Become The Ultimate Gaming Resource". TechCrunch (AOL).
  17. ↑ Prodigal. "Welcome to the Curse Beta". Curse.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  18. ↑ "Curse announces new location as they separate their VoIP and media services". The news Hub. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  19. ↑ "curse.com Site Overview". Alexa.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  20. ↑ "MSDN - Inspire - Curse.com". Msdn.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  21. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140502030357/http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/curse. Archived from the original on May 2, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  22. ↑ "America's Army News | Curse.com hosts AA:PG Wiki!". News.americasarmy.com. 2013-12-09. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  23. ↑ "Gameforge Announces Media Partnership with Curse.com - Gameforge AG". Corporate.gameforge.com. Retrieved 2015-02-19.
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  26. ↑ "Fastest Growing Bay Area Private Companies 2011". San Francisco Business Times. 28 October 2011.
  27. ↑ "Slideshow: The fastest-growing Bay Area companies". San Francisco Business Times. 28 October 2011.
  28. ↑ "Gamepedia".
  29. ↑ "Launches Gamepedia & Marvel Heroes Wiki!". Curse.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  30. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140714123054/http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ernst-young-announces-curse-inc-ceo-hubert-thieblot-is-an-entrepreneur-of-the-year-2012-semifinalist-in-northern-california-2012-04-16/rescue?SourceUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marketwatch.com%2Fstory%2Fernst-young-announces-curse-inc-ceo-hubert-thieblot-is-an-entrepreneur-of-the-year-2012-semifinalist-in-northern-california-2012-04-16. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  31. ↑ "Wall Street. Localized. The New Investment Community.". PassFail.com.
  32. ↑ "Curse, 1 of world's largest video gaming information companies, to relocate from San Francisco to Huntsville (updated) (photos, video)". AL.com.
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  34. ↑ "Northern California | Smart Business Magazine". Smart Business Magazine.
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  38. ↑ "CurseForge". CurseForge.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
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  40. ↑ "Riot's stance on 3rd Party Mods (and Curse Voice)". Forums.na.leagueoflegends.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  41. ↑ "Curse Voice removes timers, keeps chat –". Nerdreactor.com. 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  42. ↑ "Curse Voice runterladen | Cursevoice Infos und Download (kostenlos)". Cursevoice.de. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  43. ↑ "Curse Voice says it can help prevent someone from sending a SWAT team after you". Polygon. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  44. ↑ "Curse Voice Claims it Can Prevent Swatting - IGN". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  45. ↑ "Curse Voice aims to protect users from swatting and DDoS attacks | GameCrate". s.gamecrate.newegg.com. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
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  47. ↑ "Skype-Like Gamer Platform Curse Voice Reaches New Milestone". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  48. ↑ "Curse Voice Boasts Safety From DDOS And Swatting For 1.1 Million Monthly Users". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  49. ↑ "Curse Voice Expands To Mac And Mobile With Free Voice Chat". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  50. ↑ "Curse Voice Now Available for Mac, iOS, Android | Hardcore Gamer". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  51. ↑ LeJacq, Yannick. "Beginner's Tips For Playing League of Legends". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  52. ↑ "Revamp League of Legends with three features". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
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  60. ↑ "Curse Voice White Paper Shows Huge Gains in Smite, League of Legends | Hardcore Gamer". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  61. ↑ "Robocraft (for PC)". PCMAG. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  62. ↑ "Curse Voice Whitepaper 2015" (PDF). Curse Inc. Retrieved September 16, 2015.
  63. ↑ "Curse Announces Move To California For Its Voice Over IP Team". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  64. ↑ "Curse moving Voice team to California". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  65. ↑ "Curse still committed to Huntsville despite job layoffs, transfers to California". Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  66. ↑ "The Jobs of the Future Are in These Unlikely Places". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  67. ↑ "Bukkit: The Next Chapter | Bukkit Forums". Forums.bukkit.org. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  68. ↑ "Bukkit Plugins - Bukkit". Dev.bukkit.org. 2013-04-19. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
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  70. ↑ "Kerbal Space Program and Curse Join Forces". CurseForge.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  71. ↑ Gamasutra - Press Releases - Kerbal Space Program, Curse.com Partner Together For Updated Modding Community Website.
  72. ↑ "Kerbal Space Program, Curse.com Partner Together For Updated Modding Community Websit". Forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com. 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  73. ↑ "Projects". Kerbal.curseForge.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  74. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140513003818/http://www.gog.com/news/announcement_partnership_with_cursecom. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  75. ↑ "Gamepedia". Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  76. ↑ "Introducing the Union for Gamers, a New Way to Partner on YouTube". Curse.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  77. ↑ "Curse and Athene Partner to bring Union for Gamers - News". Arenajunkies.com. 2012-03-08. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  78. ↑ "Wonderpierrot's Blog: Curse Union for Gamers - May Be the Best Gaming YouTube Network 2014 and Beyond". Wonderpierrot.blogspot.com. 2013-12-08. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  79. ↑ "Union for Gamers Partnership Information - Questions Answered!". YouTube.com. 2014-02-10. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  80. ↑ "Union For Gamers Partnership! Information on Curse/UFG Partnership and My Experiences!". YouTube. 14 December 2012.
  81. ↑ James Megretton. "Own3d TV Shutting Down". Video Game News, Videos, & Reviews.
  82. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (December 19, 2014). "Curse Gaming gives up its name". The Daily Dot. Retrieved May 20, 2015.

External links

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