KripkesManialink

Kripkes Platforms, Inml., doing business as Kripkes Manialink. is a publicly traded Manialink conglomerate. It is the game's leading distributor of in-game resources, including cosmetics such as Skins, Horns and Avatars or Tracks; in addition it provides TrackMania server hosting, advertisement, TrackMania-centered adult content, and more.
Kripkes Manialink was founded on March 26, 2010 by Kripke, a well-known community member. It has grown rapidly by offering a large amount of high-quality resources under the sub-title "No stolen content from other manialinks! 100% kripke production !^^..." and is currently the highest-valued Manialink at over 673,4 million cc as of 2024. Due to its anti-competitive practices and monopolistic position, it has received large amounts of criticism and scrutiny, including the infamous 2016 anti-capitalist protests. Kripkes Platforms currently employs around 1000 people.
== History ==
=== Humble beginnings ===
At the start of 2010, Manialinks were still relatively new (first being added in update 21.01_03g) and Kripke, an up-and-coming player decided to start a small-scale online TrackMania storefront selling car skins. Having started his TrackMania career in late 2008, he had gotten quite competent at painting skins in the in-game painting tool and was also experimenting creating custom 3D-models and painting them outside the game. He created a simple page with his rudimentary development knowledge and put each skin up for sale for 10 cc (pre-inflation, 83 cc adjusted). After a few months, he was able to afford to start running a few advertisements using the in-game advertising system - ManiaPub. This helped his site get more initial traction and allowed him to expand to his own mods and signs.
=== Expansion and stealing allegations ===
Having grown a substantial amount, Kripke started to hire freelance artists and sound designers to improve the quality of his designs and make additional items such as avatars and horns in 2011. At this point he was able to invest into purchasing some ad space in the most active regions, accelerating growth. He also hired a well-known mapper, RoYaL, to ghost-make tracks under Kripke's name for him to sell as his own. In late 2012, due to relatively low pay (most tracks were priced at only 2 cc) and very high demands - up to 3 maps per week - which RoYaL could not keep up with, she opted to re-use large portions from her earlier maps. In one recorded case, the map "Morning sicknes" was uploaded as-is with a new name "Kripkeshunt - Forenoon disease" and the mood changed from Sunrise to Night.
This caught the attention of multiple members of team Law, who noticed the similarities and released a ManiaZones Forum article exposing Kripke allegedly stealing RoYaL's work and launched a full-scale investigation on the 3rd of February 2013. The article was removed and the investigation stopped after a few hours, when Kripke bribed the authors 33 000 cc (273 914 cc adjusted for inflation) to prevent damaging his ego. This was the highest transaction amount ever paid at that point, surpassing the 2009 Nadeo payment to GrillMaster444 for uncovering the very high-severity SpiderBug consisting of 15 000 cc (186 554 cc adjusted for inflation).
=== InManiaLinkation and merger with PuddiStore ===
In January of 2014, after amassing a net income of over 150 000 cc in the previous year, KripkesManialink decided to go public as KRIP, wherein Kripke would hold 51% of the shares and sell off the rest. The step was a grand success, increasing the newly inManiaLinked company's value threefold.
In early 2013, player puddinglover created his own ManiaLink to compete with Kripke's called PuddiStore. Aside from high-quality exotic custom skins and 3D-models, including the famous Pizza-car. Additionally, puddinglover had hired a small team of very skilled ManiaLink developers who created their own tools to produce ManiaLinks which were incredibly fast and easy to use. In comparison, KripkesManialink had grown outdated in many aspects, with its legacy code-base being the main culprit thereof. PuddiStore also offered advertisements, through which it was able to gain a large amount of capital, enabling it to expand to providing server hosting, which a considerable amount of players switched to. This, of course, caught the attention of Kripke, who did not appreciate this competition. He did not want to lower his prices, so he offered to buy PuddiStore in February of 2014 for 250 000 cc - a record sum. Unfortunately for him, puddinglover declined.
Thereafter, many posts on the ManiaZones Forum started running anti-PuddiStore and anti-puddinglover reviews and stories, seemingly out of nowhere. This consequently caused ratings and income of PuddiStore to plummet. Team Law was contacted by puddlinglover to stop this defamation campaign, but they chose to ignore this. With both the general public and the authorities against him, puddinglover agreed to discuss options with Kripke. In June of 2014, PuddiStore LLC. and KripkesManialink Inml. merged into Kripkes Platforms Inml. where each Kripke and puddinglover had equal share amounts of 25.5%, but Kripke, the CEO had 50.01% of voting power. The amount paid to puddinglover was not disclosed, but is estimated at half a million browns.
=== Controversy and protests ===
Since mid-2014, KripkesManialink was quietly buying shares in news aggregators and servers, as well as buying smaller Manialinks, even those selling sexual-themed avatars. It also made large contributions to team Law, becoming its official sponsor, and gifted a mansion in the French commune of Mougins to Nadeo's Hylis. This went unnoticed by most community members due to their inexperience with this kind of occurrence.
Only after Kripkes Platforms acquired exclusive rights to Ç05-Endurance and the map being taken off from the official campaign, instead being sold on KripkesManialink for 10 cc, FWO members alex_nyoom and Fwoosh became concerned about the future of the game and began publicising these acquisitions. In November 2015, they created No to Systematic Corruption (NSC), an organisation to fight this problematic behaviour. This caught the attention of many players who began sabotaging the ManiaLink. Many of these people were found out by Law members and banned from playing on most servers (especially those owned by Kripkes Platforms). Both alex_nyoom and Fwoosh were doxxed, Fwoosh was arrested for possessing "onions"Analysis after the case suggests that Fwoosh could not have been in possession of "onions" due to them not being supplied to stores he would have access to; however, the conviction was never overturned. Fwoosh was released from prison 3 years later, in 2020 and he described himself as a changed man., a constructed case by Kripke's lawyers. Shockingly, alex_nyoom was found dead in his apartment on May 5th 2016, the killer has not been found to this day.
Connecting these events back to Kripke, a very large amount of TrackMania players started protesting against Kripkes Platforms, against Nadeo's lax attitude towards everything and against the system, demanding regulations to be put into the then completely free copper market. Many completely stopped spending money and started not playing the game for multiple days in a row in order to receive the 200 cc gift. This caused the 2016 copper inflation, where its value sank by 766%. This was catastrophic to many players, but also to Nadeo and, of course, ManiaLinks, especially Kripke's. He was forced to let 25% of his employees go and lower the others' pay. His own pay rose 5x, which caused even more uproar.
Finally, devastated, Nadeo entered talks with the protesters in November 2016. They implemented the Nadeo tax and other regulations (e.g. anti-corruption precautions), and acquired part of Kripkes Platforms to "keep them in check". The company was restructured so that puddinglover and Kripke had the same voting rights of 25% each. Most players were unhappy with these changes, saying they were not enough and that Kripkes Platforms must be split. Many were content and eager to forget about everything and continue enjoying the game. The TrackMania economy ended up recovering fully in 2019, returning to the same level of wealth as early 2016, at the peak.