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Gambitious launching itself as a game-focused crowdsourcing center
Crowdsourcing is becoming the new trend, with Kickstarter projects serving as the new hotness for getting a game start-up funded. So it's not hard to understand why Gambitious is promoting itself as an alternative to Kickstarter, specifically as a means to fund game development via crowdsourced projects. Gambitious has more to it than just the idea being a game-focused alternative to the Kickstarter giant, however; it includes an option for investors and backers to take part in equity funding. Traditionally, Kickstarter backers receive only a few bonuses for funding a project, and if that project goes on to wild success after the initial funding, the backers are left out. Equity funding allows people to play a more traditional venture capitalist role, investing money in return for dividends on successful projects. While this option is available only in Europe at the moment due to legal issues, it's a new take on funding a game, and depending on future developments, Gambitious might make a name for itself in the indie gaming market.
HTC investing $40M in OnLive for smartphone gaming
"Yes, OnLive works on cell phones, too," the company's enterprising CEO Steve Perlman assured us all ... fifteen months ago. Did you forget? 'Cause HTC sure didn't. The smartphone manufacturing giant has unannounced plans to buy 5.3 million OnLive shares at $7.50 each -- that's about a $40 million stake in the cloud-based technology outfit -- to better position itself in the gaming segment of the smartphone market, reports The Wall Street Journal. Currently, HTC designs smartphones for both the Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms. HTC's investment would follow the reported $60 million raised by OnLive in 2010 through investments by British Telecommunications and Belgacom Group. During CES last month, OnLive also unveiled a partnership with Vizio to bring its games-on-demand service to a suite of products, including TVs and Blu-ray players.
Could EA's history make investors wary about SWTOR?
According to a report on Gamasutra, investors have been slow to support Electronic Arts in its latest MMORPG endeavor, Star Wars: The Old Republic. The article released today cites Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey as saying, "We believe many investors are betting against SWTOR achieving market success, provided the company's (Warhammer Online from Mythic) and industry's track record at releasing successful new MMOs." WAR and of course All Points Bulletin being the latest MMOs from EA could make a potential investor a bit gun-shy about placing his money into another game of the same genre. Investors are not just concerned with the initial sales of SWTOR but also the long-term success of the game. The article uses the sales trend of WAR as an example. The first week's sales of WAR topped at 500,000 subscriptions, which is impressive for any MMO, yet subscriptions did not stick as customer satisfaction plummeted. If an investor is not familiar with BioWare's past successes or if he happens to view BioWare as a rookie in the MMO genre, then his wariness is clearly understandable. Today, Mike Hickey is calling Electronic Arts a "buy," but that may change if investors continue to see EA as a risky investment.
Gold To Go ATMs dispense precious metals to the superwealthy, heading to the states this year
Goldline might be a bust (sorry, Glenn), but you're not gonna let that stop you from preparing for the imminent collapse of society. Or maybe you just want to hang with your friends at the Ayn Rand Book Club (The Fountainhead again?) and they prefer Krugerrands to the fiat currency of the USA. Any way you slice it, Americans (including our friend Scott) have "gold fever." Luckily, it turns out that the Gold To Go vending machines we saw early this year are on their way to the states. Stocked with up to ten different gold bars or coins, these bad boys accept cash or plastic and use a VPN to phone home to Germany for updates on the cost of precious metals every 10 minutes. They also feature an ID scanner / camera combo for preventing (or at least slowing down) potential money launderers. The devices can be found currently in the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi, Bankshop in Reutlingen, Germany, The Westin Palace in Madrid, and the Orio al Serio International Airport, and they'll be hitting Las Vegas and Florida sometime this year. There might also be one next to the Coinstar machine at the Murray Ave. Giant Eagle (we'll check it out and let you know).
Let's talk AAPL and the future
It's been a roller coaster ride over the past two years for Apple (AAPL) stock. In December 2007 it hit a then-peak of $199.83 a share. Just two months later AAPL sunk to $125. Three months after that it had recovered to the $180s, but by November 2008, AAPL had plummeted to $82 a share. Since then, the stock has recovered and hit an all-time closing high of $207 on November 17, 2009. As of today it's sitting pretty in the $190s -- though some think the drop from the $200s to $190s is suspicious. I argue with people all the time why Apple didn't deserve its dips and plummets over the last two years: The company is sitting flush with $23.5 billion $35 billion in the bank, in cash (about the same as the total market value of another major US computer maker, named for its CEO and founder, who 12 years ago famously suggested shutting down Apple and giving the money back to shareholders). It has zero debt. It is one of the most respected companies on the planet and has the world's greatest CEO. But more importantly than the cash and its status, I believe AAPL is a great buy because it has such small market share in all the categories it operates in save one...
The Daily Grind: Do you play the MMO stock market?
Ahhh, the stock market: The yo-yo that makes people jump for joy or jump off twenty-story buildings. Playing it can be just as exhilarating, frightening, and expensive as a high-octane weekend bender in Free Realms. Well, almost... With the quote-unquote Global Economic Crisis we've been going through, almost all stocks are down from a year ago. Does that mean that now is a good time to invest? It probably depends on whether or not you believe the market has hit the bottom yet.Word on the street is that the video game industry is recession-proof (or not). When you're pinching pennies, MMOs in particular are one of the cheapest forms of entertainment and escapism money can buy. We're not here to offer advice one way or the other, but we are curious -- do you play the MMO stock market? We did a bit of digging and found a number of stocks from companies producing MMOs: Activision Blizzard (ATVI) - World of Warcraft, new secret project Atari (FR:ATA) - Champions Online, Star Trek Online, etc. Electronic Arts (ERTS) - Warhammer Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, etc. Funcom (NO:FUNCOM) - Age of Conan, The Secret World, etc. NCsoft (OTC:NCSCF) - Guild Wars, Aion, etc. Sony Corporation (SNE) - Free Realms, DC Universe Online, etc. THQ Inc. (THQI) - Dragonica Online, Warhammer 40k, etc. Based on that list, who do you think is the best investment and why?
AOL's DailyFinance App updated
We noted the introduction of the DailyFinance app in April, so without rehashing old business... It's time to move Stocks off of your main apps page. The multifaceted DailyFinance app from AOL has been updated to version 1.2 and AOL has made a great app even better.DailyFinance provides real time price information from the BATS Exchange, the third largest trading exchange in the country. A broker can choose to trade on the NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX or BATS which covers over 6,000 stocks. The correlation between exchange prices isn't perfect but can be very close in highly liquid stocks. If a stock is listed on BATS and NASDAQ for example, both quotes are displayed in DailyFinance, with a notation that the NASDAQ quote is delayed by 15 minutes. Being a trader I can tell you that those 15 minutes are often critical and buying real time quotes can be expensive.DailyFinance automatically syncs your Portfolios and Watchlists with the AOL Money and Finance web site.New features of this already solid app include: The ability to set your default screen from your settings app Re-ordering of your Watchlists in the same manner as re-ordering Contacts Alphabetical sorting of Portfolio symbols Re-ordering, or deleting news categories Horizontal views of news stories. The power of landscape mode is nicely put to use. When viewing a chart, tap compare to bring up a list of overlays including comparisons of your chart with markets, industry peers, seasonality, events (such as estimated earnings versus actual earnings), and other stock symbols. Tapping a chart while viewing a Watchlist brings up a CoverFlow view of all the charts in the Watchlist. The app is elegantly executed, and serves as a one-stop portal for financial information. Market data is provided in a logical, easy to follow format that packs a huge amount of information on a small number of screens.Download a free copy from the App Store and check it out for yourself. If you trade stocks, I think you'll be quite happy.Note: AOL is the parent company of TUAW and Weblogs, Inc.
Redstone to sell Midway stake for $100K
The week begins with more bad news for financially-hobbled Midway. Just days after finding itself on the business end of a delisting notice from the New York Stock Exchange, the company's majority stockholder, Sumner Redstone, is now preparing to row away from the sinking ship entirely. According to the Wall Street Journal, Redstone and his holding company, National Amusements, hope the separation will help breathe new life into the firm's suffocating $1.6 billion in debt. Redstone is expected to inflict sell his 87% controlling stake in the troubled publisher to private investor Mark Thomas -- obviously someone who enjoys a good fixer-upper -- for the bargain basement price of about $100,000, or $0.0012 a share, well below Midway's previous closing price of .38 a share. The WSJ also points out that the sale is but one point in what has become a highlight reel of bad investments for Redstone, who sunk millions into Midway in hopes of the company's heroic return, only to see it do a fatality on his bank account.
Metal Gear Solid 4 delay causes Konami stock price to fall
We know the news of Metal Gear Solid 4's delay has you down. Hell, you should see the bar tab we rung up after the announcement. Although we'd like to believe we're the most important people to be affected by it, that simply isn't the case. Konami's investors definitely take the cake this time, as they witnessed the company's shares fall 6.8% today, their biggest drop in four years.You'd have to go back to a year when people still remotely cared about The Matrix Trilogy (2003) to find as large a drop for Konami. According to an analyst Bloomberg spoke with, investors "were active sellers today because of disappointment over the delay." On the bright side, at least spurned gamers aren't liquidating their pre-order portfolio.
Will DirecTV's HD push stimulate competition?
Arguments have already begun over who will eventually reign supreme as the dominant HD provider, and while cable has had years to take advantage of their increased HD offerings compared to satellite carriers, that gap is quickly closing. DirecTV has already launched one HD-centric bird into orbit and apparently has number 11 ready to rock, and the firm's recent HD marketing campaign just might "light a fire in cable to reconsider the pace at which they invest" in HD rollouts. Of course, DirecTV's latest stunt (you know, the sixty-second countdown commercial) is full of asterisks and features a quick-lipped dame throwing in a multitude of "up to"s and "potentially"s, but what's clear is how harshly it comes down on cable. Hey, we're all for taking the gloves-off approach to getting things done, especially if we cable customers actually benefit from DirecTV's aggression.
Apple shares reach year's best
MarketWatch is reporting that Apple's shares reached a 52-week high of $87.95 today, apparently fueled by furious rumors of - you guessed it - an iPhone. I'm sure the report that Hon Hai received a manufacturing order from Apple for just such a device isn't doing anything to stop people from losing their investing sense either. If the iPhone is really going to happen, the word on the street hasn't changed from "the first half of next year" yet, unless you consider this latest momument to craptastic journalism from AppleInsider about a second iChat-based iPhone already in the works (seriously guys: try drawing the line somewhere - for once).As usual, you'll hear more as soon as we do.[via MacMinute]
Did Warner cut its high-def DVD projections enough?
Warner Home Video recently recalculated its expectations for customer spending on Blu-ray and HD DVD combined in 2006, mostly due to delays in bringing new Blu-ray players to market. Even after that, this Motley Fool writer isn't sure that the new numbers are accurate either. He states that Warner's projections still put high definition DVD hardware and software on the highest sales pace ever a consumer electronics platform, outpacing the original DVDs. With a format war and so many technical complications, he prefers Disney's slower wait-and-see approach to Warner spending a lot of money hitting both platforms from the start with high profile titles and interactive features. That's probably not the same opinion many of us have about the next-gen DVD rollout, but if you weren't sure why some companies are taking a slower approach to it gives a bit of insight into their way of thinking.
