Is this a goldrush or a sensible investment?

Moconews reports that over $100 million has been invested in iPhone businesses in the past two years.

Games are the second largest category (both by # of companies and dollar amount invested), with 22% of the total investment going into games businesses. (It looks as if the figures are US only).

But the question is whether the days of easy money for investors are already over. I believe strongly in the smartphone market (of which iPhone is only a subset), but with a crowded Appstore and over 50,000 apps now available, the odds of achieving a break-out hit are getting worse.

I hope that there will be some major successes, but I also hope that the field starts to thin out, as companies realise that developing for iPhone is not a panacea: it’s hard work. just like every other business.

(Original data sourced from ChubbyBrain)

The battle to be the provider of core games via a web browser is heating up.

Dave Perry has just released a 10 minute video that claims to show Gaikal working in a browser using standard home computing equipment.

It’s a big claim. Dave says:

It’s a pretty impressive demo, although obviously it’s only a video. But if you can play Spore, Eve Online, World of Warcraft or Need for Speed on a “little junky netbook”, that’s very exciting (and massively threatening to existing console manufacturers.

I’m not qualified to say whether Gaikal is going to work, or whether it’s better than OnLive.What I certainly believe is that we are moving rapidly towards a much more accessible and open gaming market.

Which can only be good for consumers.

LogMeIn, a US technology business that enables remote connections to a PC for support, access and backup, has just gone public.

This is great news for anyone who wants to raise venture capital or private equity. For VCs, trade sales are good, but can be messy and prolonged. All funds want to see the public markets are open for exits, and it makes them much more comfortable making new investments.

LogMeIn was backed by four VCs (Integral Capital Partners, Intel Capital, Polaris Venture Partners and Prism VentureWorks). Together, they invested $20 million for shares which are now worth $155 million.

If you’re in the market for venture funding at the moment, pray for more successful exits like this.

The Chinese Ministries of Culture and Commerce announced on Monday that the trading of virtual currency for real world cash is to be banned outright, in the name of reducing illegal gambling and money laundering. From the press release:

“The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services.”

There’s a million different takes on this story, most of which I can empathise with. For one, the capitalist in me says if people want to sell legal possessions to one another they should be allowed to. While some games (WoW for example) actively try to prevent gold farming, others actively encourage it (eg Second Life), and the latter can only suffer for losing China’s 300 million potential customers. What’s more, with an estimated $300+ million being generated in revenue in China alone, is this really a dangerous trade the country should be looking to abolish?

On the flip side, gold farmers can ruin a game’s economy and encourage sweatshop-type labour. With some sources claiming more than 80% of gold farming originates in China, this move could have a sweeping effect on MMOs in general.

But for me the real point here is that the Chinese government actually understands what gold farming is. In the UK, the decision to go with PEGI as opposed to the BBFC for official age ratings was surprisingly insightful – ask your average MP what virtual currency is, or why it’s dangerous, and I think he might struggle somewhat more.

GI.biz reports that Warner is the only bidder for the assets of bankrupt Midway Games.

The offer on the table is $33 million. This might bring the sorry tale of Midway Games to an end, although with Tigon Studios claiming $200,000 in unpaid fees for Wheelman and producer Larry Kasanoff claiming that the company can’t be sold as he owns the movie rights to Mortal Kombat, I fear we may not have heard the last of Midway.

I’ve finally implemented Disqus. The key reason is that lets you, the community, sign in and comment on Gamesbrief using your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

That way you don’t have to register for Gamesbrief, or comment as a guest each time.

Disqus has sworn blind on its mother’s grave that it will import all existing comments from Wordpress, and is doing so as we speak. If this feels, I will have words, and may have to revert to the old comment system.

But please, take this opportunity to comment more, on more posts.

I’ve just returned from the GameHorizon Conference, which was very focused on online and self-publishing. (It was a great conference, thanks for asking, and congratulations to Carri and the team).

But it threw up some interesting issues, and these were mostly driven by the behaviour of the delegates. Herb Kim of Think Digital expressed it best when he twittered:

“Gamers way less into Twitter. Only 7 laptops open in the whole audience! It’s like 1999 in here #tdc09″

Does this mean that developers are all anti-social programmers who prefer to beaver away in darkened rooms occasionally emerging, blinking and dazzled, to grab a Coke and a slice of pizza?

» Continue reading “Do developers even want to talk to their customers?”

Paul Wedgewood is delivering the keynote at the GameHorizon Conference in Gateshead.

Splash Damage has achieved huge success with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Paul has an interesting take on how to be a successful games developer.

1. Be AAA in what you do

Ideas are cheap. There are probably more ideas than you can possibly execute in a lifetime. But execution is everything. And execution includes polish. Paul argues this leads to better relationships with publishers and hence better deals. He gave specific examples: If your copyright notice says 2008 in mid-2009, you are not paying attention to detail. So be AAA in everything a publisher will see, and they will trust you to get everything right elsewhere.
» Continue reading “Splash Damage: Ideas are cheap; therefore get top talent to execute excellently”

As I focus increasingly on helping developers self-publish their games, the issue of marketing is going to come increasingly to the fore.

I’ve just found this excellent guide to the main SEO mistakes companies make when trying to do search engine optimisation. The guide assumes you already know the principles of SEO (research your market, identify keywords, write great content around those keywords), but for anyone who owns a website and is considering selling their games directly to consumers, even if it is via Steam or PSN, I strongly recommend reading it.

And above all, never build your website in Flash.

APB from Real Time Worlds is about to become either the games industry’s Titanic or its Heaven’s Gate.

I’m at the GameHorizon Conference in Gateshead and Dave Jones has just been talking about APB. It’s an incredibly ambitious game and RTW has raised $80 million to make it happen. But is it going to work?

Dave talked through what he did to get RealTime Worlds off the ground, and what he is trying to achieve. I disagree with much of what he says but I can’t fault his ambition or his plans

1. The #1 thing investors want to hear is honesty

Dave argued that he got funding because he went out and told investors that the world was changing, RTW could be disruptive and Dave told them honestly that he needed $50 million to make a good online game.
» Continue reading “Dave Jones APB: massive success or an epic fail”