Have we seen the last generation of game consoles?
While game publishers might want to phase-out retail boxed products, Colin Sebastian from Lazard Capital Management said that we’re going to see a lot of friction with online distribution.
Sebastian was on the analyst panel at our GamesBeat 2009 conference today in San Francisco. At the panel, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter also said that recently announced technology OnLive will create value for the consumer, and that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will lose in the equation.
David Cole,… Continue Reading
How Curt Schilling started a game company
“It’s been about 28 years since I started gaming,” baseball star Curt Schilling said at GamesBeat 2009. He started with the first Apple computer he ever saw.
“For the last decade, [massively multiplayer online games] have been the focal point of my gaming,” he said. Schilling was interviewed at VentureBeat’s game conference in San Francisco today. He said he was introduced to Ultima Online by a teammate, but didn’t care for the game.
Now, he has his… Continue Reading
VC’s view of games: ‘An infinitely fragmented market’
The economy is soft, admitted the panel of venture capitalists at GamesBeat 2009. But Mitch Lasky, from Benchmark Capital, said, “We’re looking for what we’re always looking for.” And those are companies with defensible positions, companies that can create a niche they can win in. “We’re looking for great companies with great leaders.”
Tim Chang, from Norwest Ventures, added his partners are “Not investors in games, [but] investors in game market disruptions.”
Jeremy Liew, from Lightspeed Venture… Continue Reading
Acclaim resets the music game business with Rockfree
Howard Marks is a high-energy guy. He can talk a mile a minute about Asian online game business models, or user-crafted games, and everything in between.
But most interestingly, the chief executive of Acclaim has just reinvented the music game genre’s business model. At the Casual Connect show in Hamburg, he gave me the scoop on Rockfree, something that can change the fast-growing music game business.
Music games like Rock Band –- which just shipped it’s 10-millionth… Continue Reading
Casual games are growing but have a mixed outlook
Paul Thelen, chairman and chief strategy officer of casual game distributor Big Fish Games, said his company grew faster in the fourth quarter than it did at any time in the past two years. That raises the question: Just how is the recession affecting casual games?
“We do see a little delinquency in credit cards,” he said during a panel at Casual Connect in Hamburg. But he also said those players who do pay are actually… Continue Reading
Amazon sparks controversy over casual games pricing
Amazon.com purchased casual game portal Reflexive back in October. So it came as no surprise when Amazon launched a casual games download service last Tuesday.
Now any of the 88 million yearly Amazon customers can purchase and download casual games for just $9.99 each.
But at the Casual Connect conference in Hamburg, long-brewing pricing tensions are coming to a head. Developers are not happy, because they see Amazon’s price-point as an attack on the industry.
One executive from… Continue Reading
Real Games executive tells how the recession will affect casual games
John Barbour has been the president of Real Games — Real Networks’ gaming division that was set to spin off before the IPO market froze over — for just 14 weeks.
And he says that he’s never seen so much worry and anxiety in an industry that’s growing by 20 percent a year. Keynoting the Casual Connect conference in Hamburg, the outspoken Scotsman said that online games can provide millions of players around the world with… Continue Reading
Austin game event: what VCs should know before investing in online games and virtual worlds
As an attorney that works closely with the video game industry, S. Gregory Boyd might just be the envy of his peers. As technology changes, the law has to keep up with it.
At the Austin Game Developers Conference this week, I got to sit down with Boyd for a chat on his area of practice. Boyd co-wrote a book, “Business & Legal Primer for Game Development,” (Thomson/Charles River Media, 2007), and speaks often on legal… Continue Reading
iPhone gets 3D engine middleware
On the show floor of the Austin Game Developers Conference this week, Icarus Studios demonstrated a 3D, real-time renderer for Apple’s iPhone.
The North Carolina-based studio has been developing a post-apocalyptic massively multiplayer online game (MMO) for the hardcore gamer. But in the last year-and-a-half, they’ve also started to license their technology and tools to others. This includes online networking on the back end, and on the front end, renderers such as the 3D one that’s… Continue Reading
Austin game event: Lively by Google could be expanded to include games
The Austin Game Developers Conference featured one of the first official public dissections of the Lively by Google virtual world (or virtual room), and I got a chance to sit down with the project’s creative director, Kevin Hanna in advance of that talk.
One of the news tidbits: Lively could be expanded into the casual game space as Google plans to release guidelines for more interactive components, meaning games, inside Lively spaces.
“We’re about to open up… Continue Reading
Austin game event: Sun Microsystems tailors its services for online games
Sun Microsystems is at the Austin Game Developers Conference this week, pitching developers on its latest R&D effort, Project Darkstar – an open-source server platform for massively multiplayer online games, social networks and virtual worlds.
This isn’t the first time a company has created a platform that developers can use to create MMOs and virtual worlds; in fact, it’s a market that might be described as having more lions than gazelles. IBM is among those promoting… Continue Reading
Austin game event: Online game pioneer spells out the business of online games
Here’s a debut freelance post by Austin game writer N. Evan Van Zelfden, who writes about video game and technology businesses for numerous magazines and web sites, including the Reuters news agency and The Economist.
By N. Evan Van Zelfden
Austin — Electronic Arts once bet heavily on online multiplayer games. Now it’s betting heavily again on massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) under the leadership of EA chief executive John Riccitiello.
One of the people that Riccitiello… Continue Reading