Virtual item trading platform Live Gamer has announced that it has appointed Kurtis Buckmaster as its vice president of product marketing. Buckmaster brings 18 years of professional and personal gaming and MMO expertise to Live Gamer, where he will be responsible for driving improvements and additions to the Live Gamer Exchange platform, as well as working on product implementations and managing community relations.

Previously, Buckmaster served as the vice president of marketing and product development worldwide at MMOG portal Curse Gaming. Prior to that, he worked as a senior manager in GameSpot's (CNET Networks) Community and Customer Service division. He also held marketing positions at both Ubisoft Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Live Gamer provides a turnkey solution for MMOG and virtual world operators to enable real money trading of virtual assets. The company announced an agreement with Sony Online Entertainment in February to replace SOE's Station Exchange on EverQuest II servers with its web-based Live Gamer Exchange Service. Live Gamer further extended the reach of its publisher-sanctioned transaction platform with a partnership announced today with online games publisher True Games.

Live Gamer president Andrew Schneider said: "Kurtis has an extraordinary mix of talent, passion and professional experience that adds a new dimension to our team's wealth of online gaming expertise. He has credibility as a gamer as well as respect as a marketing leader, lending him the ability to drive and innovate product features and user experience to the benefit of gamers and our publishing partners."