Moniker Brokers the Sale of Eve.com

I recently learned that John Mauriello of Moniker was the broker of record for the sale of the Eve.com domain name. Unfortunately, the sale price was private, but I would imagine it was in the six figure range. Eve.com was listed for sale in the 2012 DomainFest Global Auction with a reserve price between $500,000 – $750,000, and it didn’t sell at that point. The sale was recorded in Q1 2013.

EVE.com was acquired by a massively multiplayer game developer called  CCP Games, which is based out of  Reykjavik, Iceland. The company has been using EVEOnline.com for its  MMORPG community. It appears that EVE.com is currently being used to show a historical timeline of events related to the game, and the message of the EVE.com store page says that the EVE store will be opening this evening.

Eve.com has an interesting history. At one time, the domain name was owned by a startup incubator called  Idealab,  and it was launched as a beauty website. You can learn more about that on CNN Money, but the thing that stands out in the article is that “LVMH made an offer to buy Eve, for around $100 million,” and the offer was not accepted. As you can imagine, things didn’t work out.

It does appear that LVMH eventually did buy Eve.com, as the domain name registrant from the earliest archived Whois date in 2002 through August 2011 was  LVMH Selective Distribution Group. From 2011-2013, it appears the domain name changed hands a couple of times.

It’s unfortunate that the sale price will remain private, but it will most likely turn out to be a great purchase for CCP Games. Congratulations to John and CCP Games on the successful transaction. It shows that if a domain name doesn’t sell at auction, a broker can still privately find a buyer.