“Robert Mueller’s investigation of U.S. President Donald Trump has taken all sorts of strange turns over the past year and a half, but this might be one of the strangest: It turns out that Trump’s lawyer has a murky connection to the video game company behind games like H1Z1 and Everquest.
Last night, word came out that Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, had received $500,000 in payments from a U.S. investment firm connected to a Russian oligarch named Viktor Vekselberg. That firm, Columbus Nova, has its fingers in a lot of pots. In January 2016, months before a wrestler’s lawsuit led to Kotaku’s former parent company Gawker Media getting purchased by Univision, Columbus Nova put a minority investment into Gawker. And in 2015, Columbus Nova purchased Sony Online Entertainment, the San Diego, CA-based studio behind dozens of well-received video games. We knew that because both companies announced it together, with a press release declaring, “Columbus Nova acquires Sony Online Entertainment.” Alongside the move, the company said it would be changing its name to Daybreak.
Now, Daybreak is rewriting history. Over the past few weeks, as the studio laid off staff amidst a declining audience for H1Z1, Daybreak has distanced itself from Columbus Nova, deleting said press release from its website and telling reporters that it had not actually been purchased by the investment firm, but in fact by businessman Jason Epstein. “Daybreak Game Company has no affiliation with Columbus Nova,” the company told Kotaku in an emailed statement on April 25. “Jason Epstein purchased Daybreak (then SOE) from Sony in February 2015. Mr. Epstein was a senior partner at Columbus Nova at the time he acquired the company. He left Columbus Nova in 2017 and remains the primary shareholder of Daybreak.”
More at link: https://kotaku.com/one-video-game-company-has-murky-ties-to-trump-s-lawyer-1825896842
Last night, word came out that Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, had received $500,000 in payments from a U.S. investment firm connected to a Russian oligarch named Viktor Vekselberg. That firm, Columbus Nova, has its fingers in a lot of pots. In January 2016, months before a wrestler’s lawsuit led to Kotaku’s former parent company Gawker Media getting purchased by Univision, Columbus Nova put a minority investment into Gawker. And in 2015, Columbus Nova purchased Sony Online Entertainment, the San Diego, CA-based studio behind dozens of well-received video games. We knew that because both companies announced it together, with a press release declaring, “Columbus Nova acquires Sony Online Entertainment.” Alongside the move, the company said it would be changing its name to Daybreak.
Now, Daybreak is rewriting history. Over the past few weeks, as the studio laid off staff amidst a declining audience for H1Z1, Daybreak has distanced itself from Columbus Nova, deleting said press release from its website and telling reporters that it had not actually been purchased by the investment firm, but in fact by businessman Jason Epstein. “Daybreak Game Company has no affiliation with Columbus Nova,” the company told Kotaku in an emailed statement on April 25. “Jason Epstein purchased Daybreak (then SOE) from Sony in February 2015. Mr. Epstein was a senior partner at Columbus Nova at the time he acquired the company. He left Columbus Nova in 2017 and remains the primary shareholder of Daybreak.”
More at link: https://kotaku.com/one-video-game-company-has-murky-ties-to-trump-s-lawyer-1825896842
