WildTangent Gets $20 Million Investment

Casual game publisher WildTangent has received $20 million in debt financing from Hercules Technology Growth Capital, the company announced today.

According to a report by Gamasutra, WildTangent has said it will use the infusion to "create an even richer gaming experience for gamers around the world." The company claims a monthly user base of over 15 million gamers in the U.S. and Europe, with a catalog of over 450 games from nearly 100 developers, but is perhaps best known for Fate, a Diablo-like action-RPG. Released in 2005, Fate was well-received by both casual and mainstream gamers, and was runner-up for PC Gamer magazine's RPG of the Year award. OEM versions of many WildTangent games are also distributed by manufacturers including Dell, Toshiba, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard.

"The casual gaming market is growing exponentially, and WildTangent has proven to be a key player," said Hercules Technology Growth Capital Managing Director Sam Bhaumik. "WildTangent is a leader in developing new and exciting business models in the online games space. They have invented an industry-leading platform that provides unparalleled opportunities for marketers to appeal to gamers, while enhancing and adding value to the overall gaming experience."

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I had second-guessed my sketchy memory of the name WildTangent as being linked to spyware when I saw so much game-related material in this article, especially with an actual game name linked to them. But lines like "WildTangent is a leader in developing new and exciting business models in the online games space" and "provides unparalleled opportunities for marketers to appeal to gamers" have me apologizing for doubting my recall. I will take my memory out to dinner tonight as an act of penance for my transgression.

Your recall is correct, as you have determined, although my own experience with WildTangent (which admittedly pretty much begins and ends with Fate) has been perfectly fine. On the other hand, I've never experienced any problems with Starforce either, despite having played several games that I know full well use it. Am I really lucky, or do I just not care? You decide.

WildTangent software has never contained spyware. I used to work in WT's customer support department, and I had to field this issue on a regular basis.

The claim started back when WT's old webdriver software was included as the engine driving AIM Games in one of the updates of the AIM client software distributed by AOL. Due to a snafu, the user wasn't presented with a 'we're installing this, would you like me not to' screen. Although this problem was corrected quickly, it created the issue, and due to the lack of any quality in the anti-spyware biz, WT has had to live it down ever since.

To paint a clearer picture: WT was earmarked as spyware because the webdriver was installed without a user's specific consent in one version of AIM. That was several years ago. If you now go look up WT in any of the trashy spyware databases online, you'll see that they list it as malicious software that records your financial data and sends it back to WT.

It's the internet version of the Telephone game.