Live Gamer Selected to Integrate Player-to-Player Trading Marketplace Within Icarus Studios’ Virtual World and MMO Game Platform

Live Gamer Inc™ (www.livegamer.com), the $24 million venture-backed developer of the world’s premiere publisher-supported virtual marketplace, today announced it has been selected by Icarus Studios (www.icarusstudios.com) to provide a marketplace for the Icarus virtual world and MMO game publishing platform. The Live Gamer Exchange™ marketplace will be pre-integrated into the platform, enabling Icarus and its multitude of media/publishing partners to seamlessly and easily enable safe and secure real-money-trading (RMT) of characters, coin and items within their MMO games and virtual worlds' titles.

"By integrating the Live Gamer Exchange marketplace into Icarus Studios’ leading development and publishing platform, player-to-player trading becomes a reality for countless new massively multi-player online games and virtual worlds," said Andrew Schneider, president and co-founder of Live Gamer. "We’re proud to be working with the Icarus team to enable this powerful new revenue stream and engaging user experience."

"Live Gamer and Icarus Studios share a common goal to support emerging revenue streams and reduce development costs of online games," said James Hettinger, CEO of Icarus Studios. "The Live Gamer Exchange marketplace provides our partners with the industry-leading, player-to-player trading solution pre-integrated, so they can provide a safe, secure and structured marketplace to meet the enormous consumer demand for RMT."

Consumer demand has created a $2 billion virtual goods economy that was primarily channeled toward black and grey market operators, outside of game publishers’ control or consent. This resulted in a poor experience for both players and publishers, as rampant fraud increased customer service costs and channeled revenue outside the game to gold farmers. Because the Live Gamer Exchange marketplace is sanctioned by game publishers and within their terms of service / end-user license agreements, it offers gamers and virtual world residents a safe and secure solution for the buying and selling of virtual items for real-world money.

About Icarus

Icarus Studios is a leading provider of white-label massively multi-player online games, virtual worlds, and serious games for major entertainment, corporate, and government clients. Icarus Studios provides its partners a total solution that includes design and content production, monetization, customer support, hosting, and a tightly integrated technology platform. The Icarus technology platform was built from the ground-up on industry standards to accelerate time to market, reduce development and running costs, and enable new revenue streams through 3D, Web, Flash™, and mobile user experiences. Icarus Studios is based in North Carolina.

About Live Gamer

Live Gamer is the global leader of total commerce solutions for micro-transaction-based businesses. Spanning online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, Live Gamer provides an advanced offering that goes beyond monetization to drive core business metrics and optimize new transaction-based revenue streams. Combining its micro-transaction platform, primary and secondary market management, fraud and security solutions, scalable publisher support and international payment gateways, Live Gamer's technology has been adopted by leading publishers in gaming, social and entertainment including Acclaim, Funcom, NHN USA, Quepasa, MEG Toys and Sony Online Entertainment, supporting over 65 million users in 23 countries.

Founded in 2007, the company is backed by $26 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Kodiak Venture Partners, Rustic Canyon Partners, Triple Point Capital and Venrock. Live Gamer is headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles and Palo Alto, CA and Seoul, Korea. For more information, visit www.livegamer.com or connect with us on Twitter (@livegamer), Facebook or MySpace.