…2002: On February 25th, Elsa AG filed for insolvency with the Aachen regional court. Elsa gets into financial difficulties after several banks cancel their loans to the company. After bankruptcy, spin-offs such as Devolo or Lancom emerge. The company name Elsa has been revived several times in Germany; currently the name only lives on in the form of Elsa Technology Inc. in Taiwan. The company was founded in 1980 and is particularly well known in the areas of graphics cards, LCDs and Internet hardware. Software development in particular has long been Elsa's flagship product. With the Revelator shutter glasses, Elsa is a pioneer in 3D on the desktop PC.
…2009: On February 25th, the game company id Software will start the public beta for Quake Live, the multiplayer shooter based on the Quake 3 engine for Internet browsers. Due to the low system requirements, the game can also be played in the browser on simple office PCs. Originally known as Quake Zero, Quake Live has been a free and ad-supported game since its release. It should be expanded to include a payment mode, as financing through advertising alone does not seem to be worthwhile.
On August 6, 2010, the beta phase will finally end and two payment models will be presented: “Premium” and “Pro” accounts. Quake Live is basically free from 2010 to 2015. In October 2015 it was transferred to the Steamworks gaming platform, and since then a paid purchase has been required. The last Quake Live Client update will be released on June 7th. 2016.