gamerDNA Inc. was a

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

company for

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

players founded on September 21, 2006. The company was part of Live Gamer ( Emergent Payments). Members may tag themselves with information on games they have played, server names and guild affiliations, and use this information to find people they have played with in the past, or find guilds or other gamers to play with based on play style. The company was originally funded by Flybridge Ventures (formerly known as

IDG Ventures IDG Ventures is a global family of venture funds with approximately $3.6 billion under management. All of the funds were originally sole-source-funded by International Data Group. The first fund was created by IDG in 1996 and was located in ...

Social network for online gamers

GamerDNA helped people discover new games to play based on their interests. The site features a number of tools to help game-players learn about what aspects of games they enjoy, including automated tracking of games on

Xfire Xfire (pronounced "X-Fire") was a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers that also served as a game server browser with various other features. It was available for Microsoft Windows. Xfire was originally developed by Ult ...

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

and

Xbox Live The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an Internet, online multiplayer video game, multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox ...

; a database of games that locates games based on gameplay elements such as setting, tone and game mechanics; and quizzes such as the

Bartle Test The Bartle taxonomy of player types is a classification of video game players (gamers) based on a 1996 paper by Richard Bartle according to their preferred actions within the game. The classification originally described players of multiplayer o ...

, which helps a player identify what aspects of game play they are most interested in—and then form connections with other players with similar interests. The company has been compared to a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and MySpace for online game players, Some industry analysts have observed that social networks for online games are part of a new trend in which major MMORPG products are spawning secondary industries. Also like other social networks, the service allowed members to form social connections with other members, and traverse the database of member profiles by these social connections or by user-defined tag clouds. However, the member profiles were geared toward the alter-egos that people play as within online games, and supports the storage of game histories, guild/clan memberships, scores and profiles, and screenshots of game accomplishments. These features allowed players to maintain social contact with each other as they grow beyond individual games, guilds or servers. The service also allowed members to form groups oriented around their gaming guilds and clans, including features for event scheduling, roster management and private communication.

History

Jon Radoff founded the company in 2006. Flybridge funded $600,000 of

seed money Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' ...

. In April 2008, the company raised $3 million and changed its name from GuildCafe Entertainment Inc. to GamerDNA Inc. In April 2008 GamerDNA acquired 360voice, a service that generates

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

s using

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...

gameplay data using a data feed offered by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. GamerDNA was acquired by

Crispy Gamer ''Crispy Gamer'' was an American video game website that published news, culture, reviews, comics, and videos. It launched on October 26, 2008, as an independent website after being in beta for six months. Founding staff included former employe ...

on 2009-12-16. In July 2011, Crispy Gamer was acquired by Live Gamer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gamerdna Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts Companies established in 2006 American social networking websites