Oregon data center Peak Hosting has filed for chapter 11 amid a messy breakup with the developer of the "Game of War: Fire Age" videogame, Dow Jones Business News reported yesterday. Lawyers who put Peak Hosting into bankruptcy protection said videogame developer Machine Zone Inc. owes the data center more than $96 million for improperly terminating a deal to host the live runtime environment for "Game of War: Fire Age." Peak Hosting officials said the company should be able to operate profitably after downsizing in chapter 11 protection. Machine Zone's contract had accounted for 80 percent of Peak Hosting's business. It has shut down seven data centers, consolidating work into one remaining center in Santa Clara, Calif., and laid off all but about 50 of its 185 workers. Peak Hosting accuses Machine Zone of using its trade secrets to build a rival data center in Nevada, then unfairly terminating their contract because of a two-hour "Game of War: Fire Age" outage on Oct. 27. Machine Zone has denied wrongdoing and asserted that the contract's fine print gave it the power to cancel the agreement over outages. Machine Zone also said Peak Hosting's facilities didn't meet industry standards.
