Xfire 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 Ultimate Arena based in Menlo Park, California. On January 3, 2014, it had over 24 million registered users.
Xfire's partnership with Livestream allowed users to broadcast live video streams of their current game to an audience. The Xfire website also maintained a "Top Ten" games list, ranking games by the number of hours Xfire users spend playing each game every day. World of Warcraft had been the most played game for many years, but was surpassed by League of Legends on June 20, 2011.
Social.xfire.com was a community site for Xfire users, allowing them to upload screenshots, photos and videos and to make contacts.
Xfire hosted events every month, which included debates, game tournaments, machinima contests, and chat sessions with Xfire or game developers.
Xfire's web based social media was discontinued on June 12, 2015, and the messaging function was shut down on June 27, 2015. The last of Xfire's services were shut down on April 30, 2016.
History
Xfire, Inc. was founded in 2002 by Dennis "Thresh" Fong, Mike Cassidy, Max Woon, and David Lawee. The company was formerly known as Ultimate Arena, but changed its name to Xfire when its desktop client Xfire became more popular and successful than its gaming website. The first version of the Xfire desktop client was code-named Scoville, which was first developed in 2003 by Garrett Blythe, Chris Kirmse, Mike Judge, and others. The services ability to track game play hours and quickly launch web games, compared to other services at the time quickly gained it popularity.
On April 25, 2006, Xfire was acquired by Viacom in a US$102 million deal.
In September 2006, Sony was misinterpreted to have announced that Xfire would be used for the PlayStation 3. The confusion came when one PlayStation 3 game, Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, was to use some of Xfire's features with more game support planned for the future.
On May 7, 2007, Xfire announced that they had reached 7 million registered users. Shortly after, on June 13, 2007, co-founder and former CEO Mike Cassidy departed the company to work for venture capital firm Benchmark Capital. Adam Boyden, Vice President of Business Development & Marketing, was assigned to take his place and manage the company for a temporary period.
On August 2, 2010, Xfire was acquired by Titan Gaming, a skill-based matchmaking service for game developers. Titan Gaming had raised only US$1 million prior to the acquisition, so Viacom likely sold Xfire for significantly less than they bought it. On the day of the acquisition, the Xfire team broadcast a message to all users stating that most of the original employees would be leaving. The message was later put on Xfire's website. In October 2011, little over a year after it was acquired, Xfire was spun off from Titan Gaming and raised US$4 million in funding. Xfire's president estimated that US$44 million had been invested into the company up to that point.
After regaining independence, Xfire pivoted to focus on the Asian market. On April 10, 2012, it hired Malcom CasSelle, a former Tencent executive, as CEO. On the same day, it announced a joint venture with a Chinese Communist Youth League-affiliated company to localize and distribute its service in mainland China. A month later, it raised US$3 million dollars in a funding round led by IDM Venture Capital, a Singapore-based firm. The financing was aimed at expanding Xfire's market share in Asia, and the company said it would likely be part of a larger round of funding.However, this was the last round of funding the company received before its demise.
On June 10, 2015, Xfire announced that its social services would be shut down on Friday, June 12 with only 2 days' notice. The home page for the social part of Xfire at that time linked to an export page where users could download all their previously uploaded screenshots and videos.
The export function ceased to be available on or around June 27, 2015. On July 6, 2015, the site was shut down and the contents of the service were deleted.
Video game and pop culture news
In 2020 a video game, movies and TV news website was launched on the Xfire domain (https://www.xfire.com).