venture-capitalists
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What do venture capitalists see when they look at games?
Kickstarter has gained a great deal of traction lately, but by and large new games are still funded the same way they've always been funded: by venture capitalists willing to shell out money in hopes of seeing a return on investment. That being said, the games industry looks at venture capitalists more as fountains of money than actual people, a necessary evil at best. A new piece penned by Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners sheds some light on what goes on behind the scenes when capitalists are approached for funding. Liew makes a point of mentioning that one of the features he looks for is the idea that the studio can turn out another good game after the first one, mentioning CCP Games and Jagex as both lagging behind. He also points out the power of community, noting that League of Legends gained much of its current popularity by completely taking over the DOTA community. While the piece is focused on gaming as a whole rather than just MMOs, fans of video games will no doubt find several points of interest within the full article.
Two years after Fred Wilson dumped AAPL...
We all make predictions that don't turn out as planned. For example, this morning I said I'd have a few beers, enjoy a barbeque in the sun with friends and perhaps go to the cinema tonight. Turns out I have two daughters under the age of 3, so there went my day. But at least I'm not kicking myself like Fred Wilson must be. Wilson is the venture capitalist managing partner of Union Square Ventures who, two years ago, famously announced that he was selling all his shares in Apple because he didn't believe the company was "being straight with investors" over Steve Jobs's health. "My average price on my entire position in Apple is US$96, so I'll take a small loss on this and a small gain on the stock I bought during the meltdown last fall." He sold at $91.36 -- and at close yesterday, Apple shares were at $338.08, up $246.72 or 270 percent. He sold Google at the same time but announced a short time later he was buying back into the search giant. See the chart above for how that one worked out for him. Maybe he only had one share in Apple (although $246.72 would go nearly halfway towards a new iPad 2). Maybe he's happy with that 50 percent-plus gain in Google's value. Or maybe he's still kicking himself now. Me, I think we'll have that barbeque tomorrow. [Via Daring Fireball]
Kleiner Perkins iFund doubles to $200m, investing in iPad apps from Shazam, ngmoco and more
Apple said it expects the iPad to be a "second gold rush" of app development as consumers rush to add content to their new devices, and it looks like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers agrees: the venture capital firm just announced that it's expanding the iFund to $200 million to invest in iPad app development. If you'll recall, the iFund was originally announced alongside the iPhone OS 2.0 SDK, and provided $100 million in total investments to 14 iPhone app developers like Shazam, ngmoco, and Shopkick -- companies responsible for 18 apps that have hit the App Store Top 10. Keep in mind that this money was promised before the iPhone App Store was even launched -- so given how that bet paid off, it's not surprising that KPCB's decided to double down on the iPad, which looks like it'll have even higher app prices. Along with the announcement, some iFund devs announced the following iPad apps: Pinger: Doodle Buddy and Starsmash Booyah: MyTown, a popular location-based game Shazam: Shazam, optimized for the new screen size, ngmoco: Flick Fishing, a new MMO called CastleCraft, Charadium (described as "massively multiplayer Pictionary"), God Finger, We Rule, WarpGate, and one more we missed -- anyone catch it? GOGII: TextPlus Nothing too surprising here, but it looks like the heavy hitters are going to be on the iPad bandwagon from day one -- and pushing hard for this thing to be a success.
Shazam picking up investors, boasts 50 million users
Shazam is one of the first apps I actually used in context on the iPhone, and while we haven't heard much about the app since it debuted way back in the early days of the App Store, apparently the company itself has been blowing up, thanks to the free app. They've picked up a nice round of investment from venture capitalists, and the service itself now boasts over 50 million users (by comparison, Last.fm claims only 30 million, but they've gotten way more press than Shazam's service, including recent integration on Xbox Live). That's a heck of an achievement, and Apple is a huge part of it -- not only did Shazam make a big splash on their iPhone app, but they say that Apple actually helped connect the VCs and the company together. That's an interesting peek behind the scenes at what Apple is doing for one of the App Store's oldest and most popular free apps. As for why Shazam is so popular, the VCs say they can see the platform as a "springboard" for selling music, advertising, and a few other commodities. Currently Shazam's free app only lets you tag five songs a month (a limit I never hit and thus didn't know about, even though I would say that I do use the app regularly), but they're planning a paid version that will allow unlimited identification of songs through the iPhone's microphone. I don't know how well that will sell (it's hard to believe that people will pay $5 for a service they are already using for free, though perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of music that people want to "tag"), but it's clear that Shazam is a company that is making the absolute best of having an extremely popular free app on the App Store.
The iFund's VCs start blogging
When Apple first announced the iFund a while back, the idea seemed pretty opaque by its very nature -- the plan was to invest $100 million in people and companies who were interested in developing innovating apps for the iPhone. But that could be anybody, and though we've heard a few peeps from them since, the whole process hasn't been super clear.That's probably why the iFund people are stepping up themselves to provide a little clarity: they've started an iFundVC blog to explain the whole process and (hopefully) keep us up to date on just what the $100 million is getting them. The first post gets us up to date on who's getting this cash -- apparently ngmoco is one of the groups being iFunded, as is a text-messaging social platform (your guess is as good as ours) called GOGII, and another secret project launching next year.They also discuss what's gone on with the App Store so far, and say that they're committed to pushing the quality of apps in the store forward. We're all for that -- hopefully in this case, more money will equal better apps. That doesn't always (ever?) work, but somebody's got to try it.
Live Gamer will attempt making RMT legit and official
Raph Koster has posted about Live Gamer, a new service we posted about yesterday (heavily funded by venture capitalists) that is attempting to bring the real money trading market (where you pay real money for ingame items) over to the official, developer-approved side of things. Gamasutra has a Q&A as well, and there's a lot to chew on as regards to what Live Gamer seems to be attempting to do.Raph's idea seems to be that RMT is simply another ancillary service that can spring up and provide revenue around the MMO market (of which this very site you're reading is one). But there is a serious difference between RMT, and services like the one this site provides (in the form of MMO news and guides). RMT is still, among most players, considered cheating. As most people trying to make money off of RMT have pointed out, it's a cultural thing, much more ingrained among Westerners than anywhere else. But it's still a perception that exists-- it's OK to look at a strategy guide to become a better player, but it's not OK to pay real money for better gear.Which makes Raph's last two sentences that much more disturbing. He says gamers won't like this (and they already do not). But he says that the same people who publicly decry RMT will be spending money on it in private. As much as players argue against RMT on message boards and in blog comments, there's no denying that these venture capitalists are convinced there is a huge market there.
