Diele's Real Deal

Playdom Acquires Facebook Game Developer Offbeat Creations

Oscar Diele — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:52:02 +0000

Social gaming company Playdom has acquired Facebook game developer Offbeat Creations. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Offbeat Creations has developed several popular apps on Facebook including Super Farkle. The acquisition will obviously boost Playdoms presence on Facebook. The gaming company has largely been known as dominant on social network MySpace. Playdom’s lineup of games included Sorority Life Mobsters 2 Lil Farm Life Tiki Farm Tiki Resort Wild Ones and Poker Palace. Offbeat Creations founders will join Playdom in leadership roles in Playdoms Seattle offices. In November Playdom raised a massive 43 million at a 260 million valuation. Playdom’s presence on MySpace is strong. Their Mob Wars game has 14 million or so users there and the company was likely pulling in 60 million or more in revenue at that time. According to our stats from November, Playdom has 28 million monthly game users. 60% of traffic is from MySpace v 40% from Facebook. They have twelve MySpace apps and 6 Facebook Apps. This acquisition should boost their number of Facebook apps Offbeat Creations says that its games on Facebook currently exceed one million monthly users Playdoms main competitor is gaming giant Zynga which is a leading game developer on Facebook.

MySpace Founder Acquires Mindjolt

Oscar Diele — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:21:42 +0000

MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, who left the social-networking company in 2009, is part of a group buying MindJolt, a Facebook online game provider, just like the immense popular Zapapa. DeWolfe, along with former MySpace executives Colin Digiaro and Aber Whitcomb, made the acquisition with Austin Ventures, San Francisco-based MindJolt said today in a statement. MindJolt provides access to 1,300 games on the Web and has more than 20 million active users on Facebook and other sites, according to the statement. Terms weren’t disclosed. DeWolfe, who will be chief executive, left MySpace in April, about four years after selling the social network to News Corp. as part of a deal worth $580 million. With MindJolt, DeWolfe is trying to capitalize on the increasing number of people who play games on Palo Alto, California-based Facebook. Zynga Game Network Inc., the biggest maker of games on Facebook, is worth $2.61 billion, according to SharesPost Venture-Backed Index, which tracks trading of shares in private companies. MindJolt gives developers tools to distribute games on social networks and collect revenue, according to the statement. The U.S. market for games played on social-networking sites, including Facebook and MySpace, will triple to more than $2 billion in 2012, according to ThinkEquity LLC.

PocketGear announces the acquisition of Handango

Oscar Diele — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:49:28 +0000

Today independent app store PocketGear announced the acquisition of Handango. The new combination will be a provider of smartphone applications globally for the BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, and Linux platforms, with over 140,000 applications in their library from more than 32,000 developers.

According to PocketGear’s CEO Jud Bowman: “Our vision is to facilitate an open app store ecosystem that supports every mobile device, every application, and every carrier network globally”. After this acquisition, the resulting company will continue to operate under the PocketGear name. Handango will join the PocketGear network of direct-to-consumer app storefronts, which also includes SymbianGear.com, AndroidGear.com, RIMGear.com, Smartphone.net and PalmGear.com. More than 1,000 developers are also leveraging the firm’s developer storefront solutions to market and sell their software directly from their own websites and other marketing channels. According to PocketGear, together with Handango it has generated more than $400 million in mobile application revenues to date.

Ngmoco aquires iPhone dev Freeverse

Oscar Diele — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:35:40 +0000

iPhone game publisher Ngmoco has bought developer Freeverse and announced that it has raised a further $25 million in funding bringing its total – after three rounds – to over $40 million. The move is being seen as a further attempt by San Francisco based Ngmoco to create a leadership role in iPhone publishing, with an eye to the coming iPad market.

As well as publishing for iPhone, New York-based Freeverse has been operational in the Mac market since 1994. Its major iPhone hits have included Days of Thunder and Skee-ball, all of which have been paid apps, although Ngmoco looks likely to move the company over to a free-play model, with sales leveraged from in-app upgrades. Neil Young, CEO of Ngmoco told Techcrunch that the core company will produce about 20 iPhone games this year, with Freeverse targeted to generate the same number (http://bit.ly/8ZmPsF)

An historic overview of game consoles

Oscar Diele — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:29:04 +0000

Sure, everybody is familiar with the Xbox, PS3 and Wii. But did you know that more than 140 game consoles have been produced since Magnafox launched the Odyssey in 1972? For a complete overview visit http://consollection.de/. I played my first game on the Atari VCS 2600 (http://consollection.de/consoles/VCS-2600/).

Shanda Games acquires Mochi Media for $80 million

Oscar Diele — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:55:51 +0000

Mochi Media, a Flash game advertising network and payments platform funded by Accel Partners and Shasta Ventures, has been acquired by Shanda Games for $60 million in cash and $20 million in equity.

Shanda is China’s largest operator of online games, with approximately 10 million active accounts. The company operates so-called MMORPGs, or massively multi-player online role-playing games, under which users pay monthly subscriber fees as well as purchase in game items. The company went public on NASDAQ late last year (GAME).

As of June 2009 100 million people were playing games that included Mochi Media. They also launched a payments platform for game developers last year.

Shanda also acquired Goldcool Games earlier this month, a Shanghai-based online game developer and operator. Goldcool Games currently operates two MMORPGs, “Hades Realm” and “Dukes and Lords.” The company also has several MMORPGs in the pipeline, including “Dragon Heir,” “Zodiac Tales,” “Martial Glory” and “Hades Realm II.”

TechCrunch Top 100: Online gaming is hot

Oscar Diele — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:54:07 +0000

TechCrunch heeft recentelijk de “TechCrunch Europe Top 100″ gepubliceerd. Dit is de lijst met de 100 meest innovatieve en veelbelovende tech-bedrijven in Europa. Opvallens is dat 4 bedrijven in de top 10 actief zijn in de online gaming industie: Miniclip, King, Playfish en StarDoll.

id Software overgenomen door Zenimax

Oscar Diele — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:38:59 +0000

De ontwikkelingsstudio id Software, bekend van de iconische games Doom, Quake en Wolfenstein wordt overgenomen door de eigenaar van Bethesda Softworks, genaamd Zenimax Media.

Voor toekomstige games van id Software betekent dit dat deze zullen worden uitgegeven door Bethesda Softworks, o.a. bekend van Fallout 3. Oprichter John Carmack zal de leiding behouden over id Software.

20% alle iPhone apps is game

Oscar Diele — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:40:04 +0000

Van alle applicaties die voor de iPhone te downloaden zijn in de App Store, gaat het in 20 procent van de gevallen om videogames. Al meer dan 13.000 games zijn er beschikbaar.
Van die 13.000 games zijn er 77,4 procent betaald en 22,6 procent gratis te downloaden. Als gekeken wordt naar de genres waar de games binnen vallen, dan vormen puzzelgames met 16,4 procent de grootste groep, gevolgd door actiegames (11,2 procent) en arcadegames (11,1 procent).

De populairste game op dit moment is iHandgun, terwijl Hero of Sparta van ontwikkelaar Gameloft de populairste betaalde game is. Het aantal games neemt nog steeds sterk toe. In maart dit jaar stond de teller nog op 6.000 games en sindsdien is het aantal al verdubbeld.

Socialist Vermeend stapt in games

Oscar Diele — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:04:43 +0000

Ooit was hij minister voor de PvdA, maar tegenwoordig is Willem Vermeend helemaal gegrepen door het kapitalisme. Hij speelt op de beurs en investeert op grote schaal in gamebedrijven. Dat blijkt uit een melding van de AFM. Vermeend blijkt grote belangen te hebben opgebouwd in de bedrijven Games Factory Online en Game Entertainment Europe.

Vermeend heeft afgelopen week groot belang genomen in Value8, het beursgenoteerde investeringsvehikel van voormalig VEB-voorzitter Peter Paul de Vries. Hij heeft met de investering ruim 8 procent van het stemrecht in handen gekregen. De aanleiding was een complexe deal waarbij Value8 een aanzienlijk belang nam in Games Factory Online. Om die investering te bekostigen heeft Value8 nieuwe aandelen uitgegeven en die blijken allemaal in handen van socialist Vermeend te zijn gekomen. Het gaat om 57 duizend aandelen, zo meldt de AFM.

Vermeend ziet een grote toekomst voor games producenten. Hij is door de transactie zowel op persoonlijke titel als via Value8 aandeelhouder van Games Factory Online geworden (via 925.nl).