What is up with Hoyle-Sierra and Case’s Ladder?
Hoyle-Sierra is legendary for their card, board puzzle and casino games and I was not aware they had an on line play site until this week. They’ve been online for 10 years.
Hoyle-Sierra games are now owned by a company called Encore, which has a contract with Case’s Ladder (owned by Demand Media) to run the online site. If I’m understanding correctly, the contract ran out and thousands of online league players are upset.
Case’s Ladder is a fan site that runs tournaments on multi player game sites. It also supports gamers who run their own tournaments.
About Case’s Ladder
Case’s Ladder is the leader in Internet gaming ladders, leagues and tournaments. The company, founded in February 1996, offers both free and premium membership programs to mass-market game players. The company operates the largest collection of online ladders, leagues and tournaments at www.casesladder.com.
The company also provides branded ladder, league and tournament solutions for online gaming sites, web portals and game publishers. Case’s Ladder is a division of Demand Media, Inc.
I first saw Case’s Ladder at a now defunct on line game site Flipside.com.
It’s a forum now. I found a plea to other gamers from a Hoyle-Sierra player, Big Fish ads and very little else.
There is a Flipside Game Studios headquartered in the Philippines where developers appear to be concentrating on staying away from mega companies which devoured them in the past.
I know nothing about Case’s Ladder, other than what they’ve said about themselves – if you go to their site, you’ll see 11 million people registered.
You’ll see in a drop down menu, just about every multi player online game site and online game site out there.
All I remember about Case’s Ladder from the former online Flipside site is that these members were very serious players into competition, tournaments, leagues and winning.
Whatever floats your boat.
Although there are thousands of serious players in each genre of online game imaginable, they are communities of people who experience loyalty, camaraderie, friendship, frustration, anger, and sadness as online sites come and go.
All I vaguely remember from Flipside was squabbling in and around Case Ladder tournament rooms and I stayed clear.
The Hoyle – Sierra (Encore - a division of Navarre) fans seem to be waiting on corporate decisions.
The use of site rules section still has the legal spiel from the former owners of Hoyle games, Vivendi Universal Games, Inc.
From the Hoyle-Sierra forum:
To the Cases Ladder Hoyle Online Community,
All parties involved in finding a solution to maintain the online site have been working together very hard these past few weeks.
We’re on a good path but not quite there. To give ourselves the time needed to create a good long term plan, we’re giving ourselves the month of February to work through the details.
So, please play on.
We’ll keep everyone posted as we move things forward.
Thank you.
A petition to save Hoyle Sierra’s online site has nearly 3 thousand signatures. The site contract appears to have run out January 31st, however the site is still online and running.
I spent a bit of time reading about the companies behind the Hoyle-Sierra online site.
A bit of time is an understatement actually.
Hours.
The history of various companies involved with this one site and it’s games with various acquisitions, divisions, consolidations, take-overs, diversifying, distribution etc. is something else.
I can’t pretend I got more than a glance at these mega media players.
Sierra-Hoyle online players will know the fate of their favorite site soon enough.
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