Archive for the ‘Analysis’ Category

50 Questions: What are the key terms in a termsheet? (Part 2 of 2)

September 8, 2011

In this post I will cover the other key economic terms; liquidation preference and anti-dilution, the most important control terms; board structure and protective provisions, and then finish with a few words on exclusivity and cost. Over these two posts I will then have covered the most important clauses in a termsheet, and you should be able to tell whether a termsheet is attractive or not, but there is a lot that isn’t covered and they are no substitute for a good lawyer.

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Posted in: 50 questions, Analysis, Finance

Tagged with: games, games industry, investment, venture capital

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What Happens When Activision’s ‘Oil Well’ Dries Up?

September 1, 2011

The digital business has not been a major part of Activision’s strategy. It has been content to allow Electronic Arts to snap up businesses such as Playfish, Chillingo and PopCap. It has increased its reliance on its two major franchises , Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, not least by mothballing the Guitar Hero franchise. Does this strategy add up to a successful long-term future for Activision, or are they evidence of a deeper malaise?

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Posted in: Analysis, Featured

Tagged with: aaa games, activision, digital distribution, electronic arts, franchises, games, mobile games, revenue

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Video games and riots

August 25, 2011

This opinion piece is part of a regular series of posts I am writing for Gamasutra. Here I examine the role that video games play in society, and look at how “games as propaganda machines” played into last week’s riots in London. A week ago last Monday, I, like many Londoners, was glued to my [...]

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Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion, Uncategorized

Tagged with: games, politics, propaganda, society

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The game industry should learn from the music industry’s mistakes

August 24, 2011

This is an article I wrote in May 2008. It was published in MCV and as part of GAMESbrief Unplugged Volume 2. I’m reposting it now in response to recurring arguments on thechaosengine brought to our attention by Tony Gowland (@FreakyZoid). Games are now bigger than music at High Street retail. Something to shout about? [...]

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Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Marketing, Opinion, Sales

Tagged with: boxed games, digital distribution, music industry, pricing, publishers, publishing, retail distribution

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Gamescom hosts fight for the games market

August 19, 2011

The games world is limbering up for its own titanic struggle—a battle of the old versus the new. A battle between the bombast and hype of traditional, high-quality console games and the metrics-led marketing of the new breed of social, browser-based and mobile games. The battleground for this clash is Gamescom, one of the annual conventions of the video games industry

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Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion

Tagged with: browser games, casual games, conferences, console, gamescom, mobile games, publication, wall street journal

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The Inevitable Unionisation of the Games Industry

August 18, 2011

Last week, Michael Pachter, an investment analyst at Wedbush Securities caused a stir amongst game developers the world over.

His crime? To declare that “unpaid crunch deserves no sympathy”.

I understand where Pachter is coming from: I used to be an investment banker and equity research analyst.

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Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion

Tagged with: games industry, layoffs, overtime, unionisation, unions

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Digital revenues are 37% of the total software market in the US

August 1, 2011

I’ve just been trying to work out how big the AAA market is in the US (largely because of this post I wrote about the smartphone market in the US being forecast to be worth $1 billion in 2011). The ESA provides a lot of useful facts and figures on the games industry. These are [...]

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Posted in: Analysis, Featured

Tagged with: boxed games, digital distribution, market size, revenues, us

3 Comments