Steve Bannon sunk $60M of Goldman Sachs' money into a failed World of Warcraft goldfarming scheme

Cory Doctorow 3:34 pm Thu Feb 9, 2017

I missed this story when it was published last Labor Day, but hey: when Steve Bannon was you know, a regular joe working for a scrappy, much-loved, all-American firm called Goldman Sachs, he directed a $60m investment in a company called Internet Gaming Entertainment, which was a marketplace for buying and selling World of Warcraft gold, ground out of the game by botmasters and sweatshop gold-farmers.

In 2007, following a major lawsuit by one World of Warcraft player, who accused IGE of "substantially impairing" players' enjoyment of the game, the company took a nosedive. It rebranded to Affinity Media, and Bannon took over as CEO. He stayed in that role until 2012, when he joined Breitbart, which, coincidentally, also peddles imaginary stuff on the Internet.

Trump's Campaign CEO's Little Known World of Warcraft Career [Issie Lapowsky/Wired]

(Image: Thefrenchyariles)

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