Games Brief

Get 25% off GAMESbrief Unplugged until January 31st

Last year, we published two volumes of GAMESbrief Unplugged – curated, edited and reorganised collections of the best of GAMESbrief. As well as being useful for reference, reorganising the content to follow the development of key stories and events makes for compelling reading for anyone with an interest in the business of games. It’s fascinating [...]

Business Masterclass – bring a colleague!

Now is your chance to take advantage of the earlybird discount for my next GamesDev Business Masterclass. If you book before 31st January, you can save £50 on your delegate pass. Plus, you can bring colleagues along for half-price with a colleague pass!

50 questions: Do i need “competitive tension” in my fundraising process?

How many VCs do you want competing to invest in you?

It’s not a facetious question. Too few, and there is no sense of urgency or competitive tension. Too many, and you can be bewildered by choice, leaving hot prospects to go cold and chasing the next potential investor. Net result in both cases: no deal.

Zynga’s cloning protection racket

Zynga has just launched a game Dream Heights which is a direct clone of Tiny Tower from independent developers Nimblebit.

Now it turns out that Nimblebit turned down an acquisition offer from Zynga.

For me, that puts the cloning in a different light.

Temple Run saw revenues leap 4x when they went free to play

Current iOS darling Temple Run started life as a paid app. It cost 99c and contained in-app-purchases.

According to an interview with Gamasutra, the app reached the top 50 in the paid app charts in August 2011, and developer Imangi turned it free in September, with impressive results.

Zynga’s shameless cloning of my favourite game of 2011

Tiny Tower was one of my favourite games of 2011. Zynga must have noticed its success because they have just launched an exact clone. Check out the open letter from Nimblebit below.

Why Pro-Amateurs are the Future

 Nobody wants to invest in professional art in a time when we’ve started to use the word “trillion” in everyday conversations about national debts. Add to this the chorus of devaluation that digital distribution has wrought in all creative fields, the largely hazy arguments surrounding piracy, and cultural trends toward lionizing the past (great for back catalogue sales, not so much for new artists).

To many, it looks like Doomsday. However I think not.