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Amazon purchases GoodGame to expand video-game business

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com deepened its foray into video games by purchasing GoodGame, a company that owns teams of video-game players and hosts live gaming tournaments.

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com deepened its foray into video games by purchasing GoodGame, a company that owns teams of video-game players and hosts live gaming tournaments.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The deal follows Amazon’s announcement in August that it had agreed to pay US$970 million (S$1.27 billion) to buy Twitch Interactive, an online forum that lets users watch others while they play.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has made video games a focus as the online retailer adds entertainment services. Amazon is boosting its TV programming available to members of its Prime fast-shipping scheme. The firm also operates a game studio in Seattle and has been trying to get software developers to build more video-game titles for its Fire TV set-top boxes, Fire phones and Kindle Fire tablets.

GoodGame organises events known as eSports in which gaming teams compete, creating an audience that can lead to revenue from advertisers, sponsorships and merchandising. CEO Alexander Garfield said in a blog post that GoodGame had raised more than US$10 million for players, teams and tournaments over the past five years without any venture capital.

The firm will now work hand-in-hand with Twitch. By combining with the latter’s 60 million monthly unique viewers, the companies will be able to reach more advertisers looking to market in eSports, Twitch chief operating officer Kevin Lin said in an interview.

“We want to bring more brands into eSports,” Mr Lin said. “It’s a very heavy millennial audience — males 18 to 34. They don’t watch cable; they play a lot of video games.” BLOOMBERG

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