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A Meeting Of The Minds: Game Companies And The VCs That Fund Them

In 2009, a total of around $600.5 million was raised by game startups — that’s down 36% from the year previous, but is still a Lot Of Money. And venture capitalists remain bullish on the future of game funding.

How do you get a piece of that action? What’s it like to work with a venture capital firm? What do VCs look for in an investment?

The MIT Enterprise Forum’s New England Games SiG and the New England Venture Capital Association co-hosted an event last night titled “A Meeting Of The Minds: Game Companies And The VCs That Fund Them” to help answer those questions. Here’s my summary…

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February 12, 2010   2 Comments

Predictions & Trends For Casual Games In 2010

Last year I made some predictions about casual gaming in 2009. Let’s grade my precog skills, then gaze once again into the crystal ball to conjure predictions for casual gaming in 2010.

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December 22, 2009   4 Comments

Slideshare! Casual Game Trends 2009

A couple weeks ago, I attended a business conference on casual games. There have been many good reports on key findings. Here’s my summary of interesting trends, plus a VC’s perspective on where things are heading.

I’m particularly interested in the idea of meta gaming, and how that could be applied to businesses outside of gaming to drive engagement and reap benefits…

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August 3, 2009   No Comments

5 Things To Know Before Creating Your First iPhone Game. Or, Lessons Learned From Gamesville's Ninja Rally

Yesterday, we shamelessly self-promoted my company’s first-ever iPhone game: Ninja Rally.

Today, we’re pulling the curtain back a bit to look at lessons learned from the development and release of the game.


Ninja daggers can’t solve every business problem. Many, yes. But not all.

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May 6, 2009   4 Comments

Predictions For Casual Games In 2009

Yesterday, we looked at trends in casual gaming for 2008. Today, I’m offering my predictions for casual gaming in 2009.

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December 21, 2008   9 Comments

Casual Game Trends In 2008

When we’re not talking product management at Product Management Meets Pop Culture, we’re talking casual games. (Not a surprise, given my gig @Gamesville.)

Today, we’re looking at the top five trends in casual gaming in 2008…

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December 20, 2008   3 Comments

The Casual Games Da Vinci Code

In the Casual Gamer’s Bill of Rights I put forward last week, it was #6 — “The right to games that help me understand the world and my place in it” — that proved most controversial among my circle of friends and developers, so I wanted to spend a little time discussing it and getting to the core of the argument.

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November 7, 2008   No Comments

Casual Gamers Deserve a Bill Of Rights, Too

The company behind Galactic Civilizations, Stardock, recently posted a PC-specific Gamer’s Bill Of Rights. In their words, this document is “a series of guidelines we’re trying to introduce in an effort to get our industry to be a little more standardized in how we deal with our games.”

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October 26, 2008   3 Comments

Causal Games Are Recession-Proof

All year long, journalists, bloggers and various analysts have wondered, “Are video games recession-proof?” The consensus seems to be: Yes! No! Maybe

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October 13, 2008   3 Comments

Spore DRM Debacle May Help Stop Piracy

Over the weekend, dozens of reviewers bombarded Amazon.com with one-star reviews of EA’s Spore because of the game’s draconian DRM scheme, which limits consumers to three installations. And that was just the beginning of the bad press for Will Wright’s latest brain child.

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October 6, 2008   2 Comments