Tag Archives: CNBC

Takeover Battle Looms for Publicly Traded Porn Company

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Despite a widely publicized downturn in porn industry profits over the past few years, investors still think there’s money to be made there – so much so that a bidding war has erupted for one of the few publicly traded companies with ties to the adult industry.

New Frontier Media, which oversees nine adult-themed pay-per-view networks, including XTSY, TEN and Penthouse TV, has received a pair of unsolicited takeover offers this month as the company’s stock has hovered under $2 per share for over a year.

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Google Revamping Search to Filter Out ‘Spam’ Sites

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Google, hoping to win back some of the goodwill it has lost over the past year, is making it harder for spam sites to“game” the search engine, giving legitimate online businesses a better shot at reaching consumers.

Google’s Matt Cutts surprised attendees at a panel during this month’s South by Southwest conference by unveiling an update to the company’s search algorithms – which could impact the search results users see.

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Zynga Expands Its Social Circle With Words With Friends

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It’s kind of hard to believe now, but when it first came out, Words With Friends really wasn’t all that popular.

The videogame — which is, in many ways, a twist on digital Scrabble — did ok for its first year, but it was only after musician John Mayer called it “the new Twitter” in an Oct. 5, 2009 Tweet, that things began to explode — and the growth rate has been phenomenal ever since.

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Virtual Economy, Real Money

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While it seems counterintuitive, the hottest trend in the video game industry is giving away games for free, then offering a deeper-level of interaction — for a fee.

Whether it’s new titles, like “Smurfs’ Village” on iPhone or old standards like “EverQuest,” publishers are in a race to offer free-to-play games — sometimes known as “freemium” games — and in many cases, it’s making them a fortune.

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Activision-Blizzard Lays Off 600

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Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of “World of Warcraft” and a substantial part of the video game industry’s largest publisher, announced plans Wednesday to lay off 600 employees.

The cuts, which generally come from areas other than game development, come as subscriber numbers for the hit online game have fallen substantially in recent quarters.

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Sony Bets Big on Its New Handheld Gaming System

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While the handheld gaming market has evolved dramatically in recent years, Sony’s betting there’s still money to be made there – and it’s betting a lot.

The PS Vita, the company’s next generation handheld gaming system, went on sale in the U.S. today. And though the electronics giant remains optimistic about the market, analysts are significantly less certain.

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Troubled Times at Game Maker THQ

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Five years ago THQ was one of the videogame industry’s biggest publishers. Today, the company is struggling to stay afloat.

The troubled game maker is facing a possible delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange, announced the layoff of 240 employees Wednesday and slashed its CEO’s salary in half for the next year as sales have plummeted. Further, last week the company announced plans to abandon the once lucrative children’s licensed games business to focus on titles for a core audience.

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In Videogames, Even Football Isn’t Without Controversy

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While football is a pretty family-friendly sport, it’s not always benign in the videogame world.

The NFL has been a part of the landscape for about as long as videogames have been around — and anything with such longevity tends to ruffle some feathers among both players and publishers.

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Porn Stars: What Might Have Been

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There’s a point in everyone’s life when they stand at a career crossroads. Go one way and you end up in your current profession. Go the other and you wind up doing something entirely different.

That’s true not just of people in the traditional business world, but also those in the porn world. Before they began having sex on screen, people in the adult entertainment industry were often working in other fields or studying to be a part of them.

We were curious about what some of today’s top porn stars would be doing if they weren’t a part of their current industry, and tracked some down at the recent Adult Entertainment Expo. Cosmology? Cosmetology? The answers might surprise you. Click ahead and find out.

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Videogame Football Fights and Furors

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While the videogame industry courts its share of controversy, you might expect sports games to generally avoid ruffling feathers. Uh-uh.

Some of the industry’s biggest controversies have involved football videogames.

While they have fallen short of the furor that surrounded the hidden sex in the “Hot Coffee” minigame in “Grand Theft Auto,” football games have had their share of head-scratching moments for investors and fans over the years.

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