Blue Flame Labs has acquired MobyGames from GameFly, reverting the site to its classic '90s-era design and reaching out to the community in an effort to restore the venerable site's popularity.
Long-standing video game information and documentation resource MobyGames was acquired earlier this month from GameFly by Blue Flame Labs. The change of ownership was confirmed via a forum post from Blue Flame Labs founder Reed Lakefield on December 18, and coincided with a site design rollback that restored MobyGames' iconic '90s look. That rollback wiped out all evidence of GameFly's controversial efforts to redesign the site, which inspired much wailing and gnashing of teeth among long-standing members of the MobyGames community earlier this year. According to Reed's announcement, it's the first of many changes the new owners intend to make in an effort to revitalize the community and restore the site to what they perceive to be its former glory. "The goal is to give the site some much-needed love and attention," wrote Reed. "MobyGames has long been an authoritative source for the games industry and we want to make sure it continues to be exactly that. Going forward we'll continue to improve things along with your input. I sincerely hope that those of who you have left recently will come back. We need you." Investor Simon Carless, who helped arrange the acquisition from GameFly, has already begun publishing weekly updates in the MobyGames forums that highlight notable contributions from the community and keep readers apprised of upcoming changes to the site. Carless intends to continue helping out with MobyGames in his free time, outside of his daily work at UBM Tech overseeing projects that include the Game Developers Conference and this very website. GameFly purchased MobyGames from its founders in 2010 with little fanfare, making few changes to the much-loved website -- beyond the addition of a GameFly Media logo in the footer -- until the 2013 redesign.
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