Machine Zone had reason to worry: new details of the conflict between Machine Zone and Kabam

New details have emerged in the litigation between Machine Zone and Kabam. The scandal at the cocktail party, associated with the name of supermodel Kate Upton, develops into an investment story.

Briefly recall the background. At the Casual Connect party, Gabe Leydon, CEO of Machine Zone, discussed with Daniel Wiggins, director of Kabam corporate development, the types of game promotion. In particular, they expressed the thesis that the campaign to promote the Game of War with the help of a girl advertising swimwear was effective. The Kabam representative replied, being already a little under the shofe, that, according to his information, this is not the case: he allegedly saw the profit and loss report of Machine Zone. That was the end of the conversation, as the author of Game of War called his lawyer. According to Leydon’s version, he called for a reason, but after hearing from Wiggins the real figures from a secret document.

Initially, the scandal looked like nothing more than an excerpt from the comedy series “Flint Valley”, where one character, wanting to annoy another, says nonsense, which, by pure chance, turns out to be close to the real state of affairs. Or, if you want, one of the plots of the gossip column, whose heroes were not television stars, but representatives of large gaming companies.

However, a number of circumstances have become known this week, which makes it necessary to take the conflict between the two managers at the party much more seriously.

Firstly, as we wrote earlier, it turned out that the theft of secret documents (it is unknown, however, whether there was a profit and loss statement among them) took place. Moreover, the person who stole them was even arrested, in fact, removed from the plane to China.

Secondly, Venture Beat writes that, according to their data, Machine Zone is currently negotiating with several companies to raise investments in the amount of $500 million (which, in fact, was not a big secret). Any unfavorable rumor or leak for the company at the moment is a blow to reputation, which can ruin the deal.

In other words, the condition of Leydon, who grabbed the phone and started calling a lawyer, can be quite understandable.

Thirdly, as it turned out the other day, Daniel from Kabam did not claim access to documents from scratch. The fact is that a month before the scandal, on July 10, Wiggins sent his boss, Kabam vice president Chris Petrovic, a letter according to which he communicated with a banker from Morgan Stanley, one of the largest bank holdings in the world. The banker was somehow connected with Machine Zone and was aware of what the company was doing in Japan.

The letter itself is nothing more than evidence of a leak of information that Machine Zone is most likely negotiating the sale of part of the company to SoftBank and GungHo. But against the background of the current situation, such a letter and the great attention paid by Kabam to its competitor is very suspicious and does not exclude the possibility that the latter was very interested and could theoretically get documents about the Machine Zone. Actually, this is exactly how it was perceived by the lawyers of the authors of Game of War, who hastened to note that Wiggins’ statement on Casual Connect is more like a “drunken confession than innocent banter.”

A source: http://venturebeat.com