Napster founder Shawn Fanning’s startup Rupture bought by EA
Napster founder Shawn Fanning founded Rupture, a social-networking gaming company (startup). Little did he know that his startup would be brought over by Electronic Arts, a popular game studio. He will be working at Electronic Arts, which has bought Rupture for USD 30 million.
Rupture’s first product was a social network for players of the online video game World of Warcraft, but it only came out with a beta version and kept delaying its public launch.
EA is buying Rupture for its backend technology. EA will not get any benefits of new users, as the service was in beta and has not launched any non-beta version. Social networks for massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) may well become a key component of EA’s online strategy. Rupture has been largely unheralded, having previously raised just $3 million in VC funding last summer.
Napster was Fanning’s first startup which he started while in college, and operated between 1999 and 2001. It revolutionized music industry and presented new challenges before them, but it went bankrupt and was closed down after a court order. However, it led to the starting of numerous other file sharing networks, which have been much harder to close down.
