Archive for June, 2008

1. Using games as a marketing tool

   June 27, 2008

   For those of you whose games development life doesn’t involve buying and selling ads, be grateful. It’s a thin-margin and high-intensity business which, while vital, can be both overwhelmingly busy and soul-destroying. So kudos to Intergi, a advertising sales house which sells ads for Sony Online Entertainment, K2 and Maid Marian, among others, for acknowledging [...]

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   Posted in: Marketing

   Tagged with: advertising, humour, intergi

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2. IPC Media buys Mousebreaker.com for “seven figures”

   June 25, 2008

   Mousebreaker.com, a casual gaming portal aimed squarely at males aged 18-34, has just been snapped up for a reported “seven figure sum.” IPC Media, publisher of titles ranging from lads mags Nuts and >Loaded to NME and Woman’s Weekly, bought Mousebreaker to “doubles our portfolio’s digital reach of UK young men” according to IPC Ignite [...]

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   Posted in: Finance

   Tagged with: casual games, ipc media, loaded, m&a, magazines, mousebreaker, nuts

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3. Core is to casual games as cinema is to TV

   June 24, 2008

   Casualgaming.biz reports a senior Electronic Arts executive saying that the relationship between casual games and core games is akin to that between TV and cinema. Ben Cousins, Executive Producer of Battlefield Heroes (a game which is an interesting hybrid, taking a core brand into a cartoony, free-to-play, casual title) spoke at the Paris Games Developer [...]

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   Posted in: Analysis, Featured

   Tagged with: casual games, film, games industry, gdc, starred, television

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4. Plagiarism: is Britain in the grip of a copying epidemic?

   June 20, 2008

   Britain has long been hailed as a creative powerhouse. Not just in games, but in all media, politicians routinely line up to praise the unique British talent for punching above our weight. Yet in the past week, two plagiarism rows have erupted. Coldplay have been accused of stealing the main melody for the title track [...]

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   Posted in: Opinion

   Tagged with: casual games, lost in limbo, plagiarism, starred, tri synergy

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5. Casual games cost only $25,000

   June 19, 2008

   Casualgaming.biz reports two leading casual games sites saying that all it takes to build a casual game is $25,000. Geoff Iddison, CEO of Jagex which owns MMO Runescape and casual gaming site FunOrb, says they can add a new cheap game every fortnight.

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   Posted in: Featured, Opinion

   Tagged with: casual games, cheap, geoff iddison, jagex, runescape, spil group, starred

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6. Big Brother in trouble?

   June 16, 2008

   The banks that bankrolled the buyout of Endemol from Telefonica last year are seeking their money back – at a thumping great discount. Endemol, maker of Big Brother and Deal or No Deal, was bought by €2.6 billion just before the credit crunch hit by a consortium including Mediaset and the original founder of Endemol, [...]

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   Posted in: Analysis, Featured

   Tagged with: credit crunch, debt, endemol, goldman sachs, loans, m&a, ynon kreisz

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7. Has GTA IV saved Take Two?

   June 13, 2008

   I was quoted extensively in MCV this week talking about the future of Take Two (full text below, because they are a quaint offline magazine). The main question I was asked was whether GTA IV had “saved” Take Two. I think that the clear answer is “no”. EA offered to buy Take Two mainly because [...]

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   Posted in: Finance

   Tagged with: comment, electronic arts, games industry, m&a, take two

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