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… 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… 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…. 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… Continue Reading