Archive for July, 2008

1. Playfish raises $1m from Accel Partners

   July 4, 2008

   Playfish, the social games company, has raised an additional $1 million from Accel Partners. Playfish is a new breed of Internet games company. Unlike traditional web games businesses, you can’t play games on their site: their games are all designed for other networks, particularly Facebook.

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   Posted in: Finance

   Tagged with: capital raising, casual games, investment, playfish

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2. Venom staff face redundancy

   July 3, 2008

   Take-Two has confirmed that it is “consulting with staff about potential redundancies at Venom”. I’m adding 30 staff to the Job Loss Tracker and moving Venom to the Game Over Zone.

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   Posted in: Game Over Zone

   Tagged with: closures, job loss tracker, layoffs, redundancies, take two, venom

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3. Letter to the Financial Times

   July 3, 2008

   Slightly off topic, but I’ve had a letter published in the Financial Times today. After Michael Skapinker wrote a piece discussing the role of jargon, I commented that in sailing, jargon has a very useful place, allowing experienced sailors to communicate exactly what they want with precision. Jargon can be useful when it provides clarity [...]

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: jargon, off topic, writing

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4. If Roleplayers bought cookbooks

   July 2, 2008

   Roleplayers (and by extension, many core gamers) are a difficult breed to please. Bring out a new sequel with improved game mechanics and you’re a rapacious publisher who is only out to screw the consumer; don’t bring one out and you’re an idle fat cat content to leave the old game out there, flaws and [...]

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: books, humour, roleplaying, wired

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5. Brain Training industry worth $225 million in US alone, says €1,600 report

   July 1, 2008

   A new report from SharpBrains, Inc states that brain exercise games generated over $225 million of sales in the US alone in 2007. Since the category seems to have been invented by Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training which was launched in 2005, that’s quite an achievement. The report (or at least its summary, I haven’t stumped [...]

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: brain training, casual games, nintendo, reports, serious games, statistics

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6. Advertising slump continues

   July 1, 2008

   In the UK, the Financial Times reports falling advertising revenues hitting share prices across the media sector. Trinity Mirror fell 28% while other newspaper groups and ITV also saw substantial falls. To an extent, the strong background economy has masked the impact on newspapers of the ongoing migration to online advertising. In a weak economy, as [...]

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   Posted in: Sales

   Tagged with: advertising, share prices, trinity mirror

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