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eUniverse To Acquire Leading Online Entertainment
Community
Casesladder.com, one of the Internet's largest gaming
Communities with over 1 million registered users, has signed a binding letter of intent to be acquired by eUniverse
WALLINGFORD, CT- April 20, 1999-- eUniverse, Inc. (a.k.a. Motorcycle Centers of America, Inc.) (OTCBB:MCAMD – news) today announced the signing of a binding letter of intent to acquire Cases Ladder, Inc. (www.casesladder.com). Cases ladder is one of the largest interactive entertainment communities on the Internet with over 1 million registered users and over 35 million page views per month. Profitable, and growing at the rate of over 2,000 new members per day, Cases Ladder will become the first community based acquisition for the eUniverse.com network.
Cases Ladder is the premier ‘event management' community site on the Internet. Providing a place for game players to gather and interact with one another in targeted tournaments, ladders, forums, and chat rooms. Online since 1996, Cases Ladder has developed partnerships with many of the major gaming services and game developers. From classic games such as hearts and spades to the latest PC games, Cases Ladder manages in excess of 1500 tournaments per month on over 100 games and 200 ladders. Cases Ladder hosts events for gamers playing on gaming community sites as: Yahoo Games (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), The Microsoft Gaming Zone, Mplayer, Kali, and more.
A true community run by gamers for gamers, Cases Ladder makes use of community members to manage daily events. Such managers include 75 “LadderOps” and over 300 Tournament Directors. The majority of Cases Ladder's members are of the 18-45 year old demographic and have purchased products online.
“With the acquisition of Cases Ladder, we have positioned eUniverse as one of the largest players in the interactive entertainment arena,” said eUniverse Chairman Brad D. Greenspan, “ The eUniverse.com network has gained one of the most unique platforms on the Internet. Cases Ladder is a profitable and thriving community that has experienced tremendous organic growth of its user base by providing free event management products and services to a growing number of Internet gaming communities.”
Frank Westall, Cases Ladder's CEO adds, “Being part of the eUniverse.com network will allow us to use the tools we have developed and our concept of community to enter additional niches and diversify our user base. We also look forward to introducing the members of Cases Ladder to eUniverse's award winning commerce sites: (www.cduniverse.com) and (www.videouniverse.com). In addition, we expect to work with eUniverse in order to begin offering PC games, video games, and related merchandise to our user base in the near future.
In 1997, PC and video game sales were $5.7 billion in the US market alone, according to research provided by the Interactive Digital Software Association.
It is expected that a definitive agreement between Cases Ladder, Inc. and eUniverse, Inc. will be signed within five days and the transaction will close upon the satisfaction of certain conditions set forth in such agreement. It is expected that the closing will occur within 21 days. In the transaction, eUniverse.com is issuing common stock to shareholders of Cases Ladder, Inc. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
About eUniverse, Inc. (www.euniverse.com)
eUniverse, Inc., is a network of entertainment focused commerce, community, and technology driven Web sites.
In the area of online commerce, through its CD Universe (www.cduniverse.com) property, eUniverse competes with companies such as Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN – news) and CDNow (Nasdaq:CDNW – news).
Upon the closing of the recently announced letter of intent to acquire Cases Ladder, Inc. (www.casesladder.com), eUniverse shall compete with community sites such as: Nettaxi, Inc. (OTCBB:NTXY – news) and The Globe (Nasdaq:TGLO – news).
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