Play Magnus Officially Aquired

"Play Magnus Group includes popular brands and businesses such as the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, Chessable, Chess24, AimChess, Play Magnus App Suite, Magnus Academy, Everyman Chess, New In Chess, iChess.net, and GingerGM."

Welp, chess has had a good run. I wonder when go or shogi or other games will get this sort of attention.

All the companies it acquired are "for-profit" anyway so will it make any big difference to the lay person? They might streamline products. Hopefully they will make Aimchess tools available for OTB games haha now that would be something. Apparently they have Ben working on it all year.

@userfriendly2 said in #3:
> Why is that? Do you think they will start charging people to Play chess? As in just to play games? That's the only real change I can see that would negatively impact my own experience.
>
> As it stands now I do 1 free lesson per week on chesscom and 3 puzzles per day and I play a similar amount of games as I do here- this is their free account now and it's plenty for me. If that doesn't change then I'm not too fussed about it.

With no real alternative, I think they could. We've already seen inclinations toward this, as just a few months ago, chesscom removed the opening explorer from their diamond plan and increased the price by 70%. If they are willing to make these kinds of changes in the wake of the acquisition, it's not unreasonable to think that they could start charging people to play chess in the future. This is why it's important that Lichess exists.

@Assios Yeah that's the worst case scenario to be true. I'd hate to see it and I don't think it makes good business sense either. There would be a mass exodus of their free account holders and overall numbers would decline.
They're all about getting people in the door (with free accounts) giving them a taste of puzzles/lessons/videos etc and then trying to sell them the membership.

I like to think that there will always be free chess online. If Lichess went in the morning, someone else would step in. Might not be as good but in this day and age you will always get a game.

Fide Arena will save us haha JK

@userfriendly2 :
Look at Hans Mokke Niemand.
No proof, just some "öhm" and "ähm" and a massiv wall.
Ask yourself, is it good for chess when the things grow together and the money makers can do what ever they want?
I hope this step will be good to Mr. Niemand and his complaint.

This is why I’m thankful we have Lichess and also it stinks we don’t see Magnus playing on here anymore! I guess it shows what money will do lol

@QueenMaster77 :
It ́s like everywhere. You have to play on chess.com to be "in".
Being "in" means you support the "in-people".
All others are out.
And this means everywhere, even in fide tournaments.
Money makes the world go around, and Mr. Magnus investments will "live for ever".
Not his title, but his investments will.
Thats very sad.

@HollyMu said in #15:
> @userfriendly2 :
> Look at Hans Mokke Niemand.
> No proof, just some "öhm" and "ähm" and a massiv wall.
> Ask yourself, is it good for chess when the things grow together and the money makers can do what ever they want?
> I hope this step will be good to Mr. Niemand and his complaint.

Yeah I know what you mean about blocking other top players out of tournaments etc etc but I dont cheat so it will never affect me. I'm more interested in how it could affect me and my friends. I couldn't give two fiddlers about the money involved and I'll never be anything close to a top player.

I want to know what people think could happen and how that will affect the lay person(the patzer if you will)

Ads a side note- I wonder if part of the agreement was to have Hans banned from the site as a self confessed cheater in the past. I know he had access restored but what if Magnus didnt agree with restoring his access. Aren't they allowed to change their minds? It's their site after all. Perhaps as ambassador for the site Magnus said I'm not playing here if you have someone who confessed to cheating here. Simple. They said OK and banned him. They have their proof for those instances and Hans confessed.

I believe in lifetime bans for cheating so I'm OK with that. What I'm not OK with is that he was banned, reinstated and then banned again. Handled poorly? Yes! Deserves to be banned based on proven past cheating? Absolutely.

@Hedgehog1963 said in #4:
>The way chess dot com works, limiting you to five games a day if you don't have a premium membership wouldn't be a surprise.
That would be suicidal move. The paying clientele - who is minority - needs someone to play with.

ICC, FIDE-arena no kind to non paying patrons and neither is significant playing site either. nor is the german site that is affiliated with chessbase. In internet the golden point for price seems to be zero or close to it.

@userfriendly2 :
I don`t know what was said or what was done.
It is easy to destroy a chess player using mental pressur.
In my opinion, if there was a plan, than was it this plan.
But.
Mr. Niemand played a few days ago a great solo match and he played great games for the uS team.
I think the plan isn ́t working.
This move (the aquirement) was a bad one.
I don ́t know Mr. Carlsen and I don ́t want to say he is cheating on Niemand on a mental way, but Mr. Carlsen is now a hunter.
He is collecting heads of "cheaters" by HIS judgement.
That ́s bad enough.
I would not like to win against Carlsen, noone knows how he will react.