ePLDT's acquisition of Level Up! Inc.

On February 2006, Philippine technology company ePLDT, Inc. announced that it had acquired a majority-stake in the live service gaming publisher Level Up! Inc. This acquisition led to the merge of the operations of the gaming portals netGames (owned by ePLDT) and Level Up!, with the former's branding being dropped in favor of retaining the latter.

About

Background

Level Up! International Holdings Pte. Ltd. (LUIH) was the parent company of Level Up! Inc., a live service gaming publisher in the Philippines. The latter, which was established in 2002, operated the gaming portal Level Up!, and by 2006, was the market leader in the country's live service gaming scene.

ePLDT, Inc. was the parent company of netGames Inc., another live service game publisher in the country and a direct competitor to Level Up!. netGames was established in 2004.

Acquisition

On February 16, 2006, ePLDT announced that it had acquired nearly 60% ownership of Level Up! Inc. from its parent company, LUIH. ePLDT had planned to merge both netGames and Level Up! to become the dominant market leader in the country.

Then-president and chief executive officer of ePLDT Ray Espinosa stated that the move would combine resources, technical capabilities, and marketing and distribution, and that it was "not motivated by [talk on licensing] the World of Warcraft online game".[1]

The new merged entity brand was originally planned to be called "Level-Up!-netGames",[1] however only the Level Up! branding was retained.

Affected titles

According to the report, it was estimated that Level Up! controlled 80% share of the online gaming market during that time, with netGames having only 10% of the market share. The report predicted that the merge would have resulted in 90% market share,[2] however this did not account for the then-startup publisher IP E-Game Ventures, Inc., operator of the E-Games portal, which launched commercially on March 2006. E-Games pioneered the relatively new "free-to-play" business model, which prevented Level Up! from dominating the scene.

Level Up!

netGames

References

  1. ePLDT buys majority stake in Level-Up! Philippines. February 17, 2006 at 11:01 PM. GMA News author. GMA News. Retrieved on 2023-08-29.
  2. ePLDT buys 60% of Level Up!. February 18, 2006 at 8:50 PM. GMA News author. GMA News. Retrieved on 2023-08-29.