It’s a big sale. Is it the biggest?
On Rightside’s investor conference call yesterday, CEO Taryn Naidu announced that the company sold a domain under .Games for $183,000 earlier this month. Naidu believes it is the highest price paid for a single domain in a new TLD.
Is it the highest? It’s hard to say.
New TLD companies have announced lots of large sales, but it can be difficult to compare sales…much the same way it is to compare domain name registrations given some registry’s pricing and promotions.
For example, today Radix announced that it sold Magazine.store to publisher Merideth (Better Homes and Gardens, All Recipes and about 300 other publications) for $250,000. But was that a cash deal? All upfront? I asked Radix for clarification, and the company said that “Some part of the cash component was discounted against the active usage of the domain and the placement that Meredith has given .store on the website.” So in other words, it wasn’t a $250,000 cash sale.
On DNW Podcast #102, GMO Registry CEO Hiro Tsukahara disclosed that beauty.shop and sex.shop each sold for “less than half a million dollars.” That covers a wide range, and it’s worth pointing out that both of these domain names still show GMO as the registrant. Sex.shop resolves to a site suggesting the domain is for sale and perhaps connecting the buyer to Beauty.shop.
Other registries are financing sales and it’s possible the buyers will not complete payments.
I’m not trying to sneeze at Rightside’s .Games sale. That’s a nice sale. I’m just trying to point out that it can be difficult to rank sales of second level domains sold by the registries.
Gene says
I’d be surprised if that sale wasn’t for e.Games
ThcNames says
I sold my house for $1 billion dollars! 😉
We can make a lot of claims, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Dan says
Roghtside is desperate for a stream
Of cashflow since they sold enom
DNPric.es says
It comes close to the other two in the past:
1.xyz April 2016 CNÂ¥ 1,180,000.00 CNY West.cn
9.xyz December 2015 $ 175,000.00 USD West.cn
http://dnpric.es/?q=.newgtld|
Andrew Allemann says
Do you know for sure that those closed? A lot of Chinese domain auctions don’t end up closing. ** Update: I have confirmed that these domains sold.
Charley says
Did he mention which .games name was sold?
Andrew Allemann says
No. I imagine they have to keep it private. They’d advertise the heck out of it if they could.
John says
I would think i.Games is better than e.Games.
Michael j. fox jr. says
I must disagree with you John and say egames is much better.
Disclosure: I own egames.us:)
egamersworld says
I’ll also agree. Egame sounds better, for example, egamersworld.com ))
John Colascione says
Nothing increases the value of a new gTLD than some nice big juicy sales. Who knows which sales are real and which sales are strictly PR stunts intended to increase resale and aftermarket pricing – probably a lot of them.