Archive for March, 2010

1. Games meet daytime TV – Farmville is the early days of the evolution of games from “film” to “television”

   March 30, 2010

   The games industry is changing. And the change is every bit as seismic as the emergence of television in the late 1940s was for film. Why is there so much hatred of Farmville amongst games developers. This is a game that is enjoyed by 85 million people every month. It is insanely profitable. It was [...]

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   Posted in: Distribution, Featured

   Tagged with: facebook, farmville, social games, starred, zynga

   6 Comments

2. ‘How To Make Money From Social Gaming’ Workshop on 31st March, Newcastle

   March 29, 2010

   I enjoyed the Masterclass on How to Publish a Game so much that I’m doing another course. This one is focused on social games. It’s in Newcastle on Wednesday 31st March (that’s in two days time) and it’s in association with Codeworks Gamehorizon. There are more spaces (free to Codework’s members), so come along. It [...]

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   Posted in: Events

   Tagged with: masterclass, social games

   2 Comments

3. Why FourSquare is working

   March 29, 2010

   I saw this tweet from Steve Hogarty on Friday: "Foursquare: You’ve just been ousted as the mayor of Nando’s London Bridge!" – Well that’s dinner plans for tonight sorted.” This is why FourSquare is working. Of course, Steve is editor of PC Zone, so you have to believe that he’s a gamer. And there’s a [...]

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: foursquare, iphone

   No Comments

4. Chatroulette – or why “open” empowers creativity, drives success and will *always* win

   March 26, 2010

   Chatroulette has been around for a few months but really hit the mainstream about a month ago. The concept is simple: two people with webcams are connected randomly. They can chat, be funny, show each other their naughty bits or move on quickly. And all of these things happen. The mainstream media focuses on the [...]

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   Posted in: Distribution

   Tagged with: chatroulette, free, open

   2 Comments

5. More thoughts on why to raise VC (or why not to)

   March 26, 2010

   Following my posts this week on Four reasons why VCs won’t fund games companies and Seed, Series A, Series B: Why the wrong funding can kill your company, I’ve just come another excellent post which I urge you to read. I’ve known Will Reeve, founder of Lovefilm and investor in Graze and Zoopla, for many [...]

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   Posted in: Featured, Finance

   Tagged with: investment, starred, venture capital

   No Comments

6. Seed, Series A, Series B: Why the wrong funding can kill your company

   March 25, 2010

   Not all investors are the same. A seed investor is looking for something very different from a Series B investor. Get the wrong investor for your stage of development, and it can kill your business stone dead. Seed Investment Seed investment is for angels and very early stage investors. It is typically less than $1 [...]

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   Posted in: Featured, Finance

   Tagged with: investment, starred, venture capital

   2 Comments

7. Four reasons why VCs won’t fund games companies

   March 24, 2010

   Alice Taylor (of @wonderlandblog / Channel 4 fame) tweeted last week to ask why games companies couldn’t get VC funding in this country. I promised an answer in the blog, and here it is. The basic answer is that they can. However, most games companies (and, in fact, most wannabe entrepreneurs) completely fail to understand [...]

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   Posted in: Featured, Finance

   Tagged with: investment, starred, venture capital

   6 Comments