GameSpy Buyout
Despite its success in attracting users, Mplayer was still in financial trouble in late 2000, and it had been speculated the division would be sold off, possibly to Sega, owner of Heat.net. However it was announced in December 2000 that GameSpy, an Irvine-based gaming site founded in 1996, made a deal to acquire Mplayer from HearMe. The two companies had fully merged by June 2001. Included in the deal was the Mplayer POP.X business unit and gaming service, as well as its Globalrankings system, which ranked players in game, and the Mplayer Entertainment Network, their advertising network. This was all sold off by HearMe for USD $20 million and a 10% stake in GameSpy. HearMe was willing to sell off its entertainment division to focus on its more profitable VoIP unit, while GameSpy wanted Mplayer's userbase for its own multiplayer gaming community. There was also the belief at GameSpy that HearMe had been neglecting the service in favor of its other ventures. At the time, GameSpy was looking to start over from its GameSpy3D service with GameSpy Arcade, which was then in beta. Only a few months after the acquisition, many features from Mplayer had been added to their new service.
Some of Mplayer's technologies were sold off to 4Anything.com, an ad-based city guide network of domains that used Mplayer's voice and chat technologies to create its own service known as LIvVE.com.
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