VentureBeat |
- A List Games creates service to market self-funded indie games
- Entrepreneur Corner: Facebook follies and the compensation conundrum
- Latin American startup gets $1.3M for 3D social gaming
- Ticketfly: Facebook really does fuel ticket sales
- Consumer Reports won’t recommend the Verizon iPhone. Do consumers care?
- Web site hints that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 will be announced soon
- OnLive will give you a free console if you buy a game
- Watch out, Tesla and Fisker! More luxury carmakers go electric
- On the GreenBeat: Geothermal wins $96.8M loan guarantee, ethanol could suffer in national budget cuts
- Do CFL lights suck? ‘Save the light bulb’ campaign has Ron Paul on board
- Ravenwood Fair passes 10M users and keeps growing (exclusive)
- Google takes aim at low-quality sites in search, Demand Media unfazed
| A List Games creates service to market self-funded indie games Posted: 26 Feb 2011 08:00 AM PST
Pasadena-based A List Games (we can’t bring ourselves to spell it as they do: [a]list games) says it will identify promising digital games — mobile or social games that are distributed through app stores or online — and market them in ways that big game publishers do. It can, for instance, tailor marketing campaigns from soup to nuts, covering market research, planning, creative, and even media buying. That’s a first for the game industry. Indie game makers often have a tough choice. They can sell out, or shell out. If they get a lot of money to publish a game from a major publisher, they can lose control of the game content. That’s a form of selling out. If they go it alone, they can wind up shelling out a lot of money to fund their games and market them. The problem for the indies is that while there is a boom in mobile gaming, only a tiny percentage of the games are making money. A List Games, a division of digital marketing company The Azyenberg Group, says it takes one of the big risks out of traditional publishing deals. Many indie game makers are scrappy enough to find their own capital, so A List Games will not fund games. That’s a big difference between what A List will do and what a traditional publisher does. A List Games calls itself a “go to market” company. While it won’t fund games, it will fund the marketing plans for the games. A List Games will focus on marketing because too many good games are getting lost in the clutter among tens of thousands of releases of new mobile and online games. A List Games will tap Ayzenberg Group, which has focused on marketing video games for the past 17 years. It has helped market hundreds of titles and it creates incentivized sharing programs, which are an increasingly big component in building audiences for games. It can, for instance, use the incentive marketing programs that Ayzenberg developed to get new players to try our games such as World of WarCraft. A List Games will make commitments to spend a certain amount of money on media advertising. That’s pretty rare for small budget digital games. In that way, A List Games can create marketing programs for small developers that would otherwise be out of their reach. A List Games is focused on online, massively multiplayer online, social, and mobile games for iPhone and Android devices. A List Games is headed by general manager Steve Fowler, former vice president of business development at the Ayzenberg Group. Its chief strategist and creative director is Eric Ayzenberg. Strategy Analytics estimated that the digital online game market will double to $24.8 billion by 2013, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 19 percent. The A List Games business was started earlier this year. Rivals include traditional game publishers and indie developers who do their own marketing, as well as public relations firms that do a lot of marketing. Advisors include former Microsoft games chief Ed Fries, Smith & Tinker founder Jordan Weisman, Big Screen Gaming founder Alyssa Padia Walles, and analysts Michael Pachter and David Cole, as well as Ben Straley, head of metrics firm Meteor Solutions. Companies: A List Games, [a]list games People: Steve Fowler
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| Entrepreneur Corner: Facebook follies and the compensation conundrum Posted: 26 Feb 2011 08:00 AM PST Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner. Can you fire someone for disparaging your company on Facebook? – Having an employee grouse about your business on a social media forum is infuriating, but is it grounds for dismissal? Attorney Curtis Smolar runs down how the question stands on the legal front. 3 tips every entrepreneur should know – Starting a company is a lot like launching a rocket aimed at the moon—if the launch is only 2 degrees off target at blast-off, it will miss by hundreds of thousands of miles. Doug Collom, vice dean and an adjunct lecturer on venture capital and entrepreneurship for Wharton|San Francisco, gives would-be entrepreneurs advice on three things they must do. Cash vs. equity: The compensation conundrum – Getting good employees in the early days of your start-up is crucial, but compensation can be an issue. Many are willing to accept lower salaries for equity, but how much should you give? Serial entrepreneur Jason Cohen explains his formula. 10 ways to expedite contract negotiations – Contract negotiations that drag on run up both legal and manpower costs. Polly Dinkel, a partner at Sideman & Bancroft, offers 10 tips on how to move the process along. George Zachary: No bubble yet, but one’s building – George Zachary of Charles River Ventures gives his thoughts on a number of trends in this keynote address given at the recent Founder Showcase event.
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| Latin American startup gets $1.3M for 3D social gaming Posted: 25 Feb 2011 10:05 PM PST
Zio Studios includes post-production and animation divisions as well as a gaming unit called Brainz, which recently released a public beta of Social Street Soccer for Facebook. Though untested, some game publishers such as RockYou, with its recent acquisition of TirNua, are pursuing a similar vision of combining 3D gaming and social media. Though social games have been popular with casual gamers, Gonzalez says there is a sizable market for players looking for something that combines the advantages of social media with the immersive experience of 3D games. Zio Studios plans to launch games that can be played on a multitude of platforms, including mobile devices. Latin American gaming companies have been in the news quite a bit recently. For example, Argentina-based Three Melons was recently acquired by Playdom. Also, within the past year, Brazilian startup Vostu closed a $30M round and Mentez (also from Brazil) closed a round for an undisclosed amount. This round follows an investment of $200,000 last year from angel investor Mauricio Bejarano, a former executive of Los Angeles startup XDrive (now defunct). The new funding will allow the company to double its staff (including sales), launch several new titles and open an office in California.  Alejandro Gonzalez and Mauricio Bejarano Companies: Promotora, Zio Studios People: Alejandro Gonalez
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| Ticketfly: Facebook really does fuel ticket sales Posted: 25 Feb 2011 07:02 PM PST
The company's founders Andrew Dreskin and Dan Teree previously sold their company TicketWeb to Ticketmaster, and they told me last year that the larger company still doesn't understand the importance of social media. This week, the company sent me some numbers to illustrate that social networking really is driving sales. Specifically, in January of this year, Ticketfly events were shared 31,000 times on Facebook and Twitter. (Ticketfly's Backstage Suite can create a concert website and a ticketing page, then it helps promote the concert through Facebook events and automatic tweets.) On average, every Facebook share or tweet resulted in the sale of 3.25 tickets. To be clear, Ticketfly doesn't look like it's going to unseat Ticketmaster right away. If Ticketfly keeps up this pace, it will sell about 1.2 million tickets this year. While I can't find any recent Ticketmaster sales numbers, the company said it sold 141 million tickets back in 2008. Still, the numbers suggest that Ticketfly is on to something. Here's all the data the company sent me:
Ticketfly has raised $3 million from High Peaks Venture Partners, Contour Venture Partners, The NYC Seed Fund, and various angel investors. [image via Flickr/Rhys's Piece Is] Companies: Facebook, Ticketfly, Ticketmaster People: Andrew Dreskin, Dan Teree
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| Consumer Reports won’t recommend the Verizon iPhone. Do consumers care? Posted: 25 Feb 2011 06:05 PM PST
In one respect, this isn't a huge surprise, since the Verizon iPhone 4 appears to be the same as the AT&T iPhone 4 — just, you know, on Verizon. If the antenna design created minor reception issues on one network (at least if you held the phone in a certain way), those problems wouldn't go away if you moved to another network. On the other hand, Apple seemed to escape any mention of antenna problems in the early reviews of the Verizon device. The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg didn't bring up any antenna issues, and TechCrunch's MG Siegler said he tried and failed to replicate the antenna problem. So there's a discrepancy between CR's results and the reviewers'. Even the consumer advocacy group admits that the Verizon antenna problems are limited to "low-signal conditions", but it argued that this is still a significant problem "since low signal conditions are unavoidable when using any cell phone network." (That’s true, I guess, but they’re probably much more avoidable on Verizon than on AT&T.) As a result, CR says that it won't include the Verizon iPhone on its list of recommended smartphones. But will it make any difference in sales? Probably not. After all, the earlier antenna scandal (dubbed "antennagate") got a lot of publicity, with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs saying he was "stunned and upset" by the CR's criticisms, yet the iPhone 4 was a tremendous hit. I suppose there is one risk: Verizon iPhone customers were probably waiting for this device specifically because they wanted better reception, so they're going to be less tolerant than AT&T customers who accept dropped calls as a normal part of the iPhone experience. Companies: Apple, AT&T, Consumer Reports, Verizon
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| Web site hints that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 will be announced soon Posted: 25 Feb 2011 02:54 PM PST
That’s a big deal because Modern Warfare 2 was one of the best-selling video games of all time and Activision Blizzard has all but promised its investors that a Call of Duty game will come out every year. The Modern Warfare series has a different storyline than Call of Duty Black Ops, the best-selling game of the holidays for 2010. The company has created a mysterious web site, www.findmarkarov.com, which has nothing but a running timer. It also sent dog tags to the press with the site printed on it. Makarov was one of the enemies in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, which debuted two years ago and was the last game made by game studio Infinity Ward. Since this fall will be two years later, Infinity Ward is due to ship another game. Black Ops was made by sister studio Treyarch. Activision Blizzard may reveal the game during the Game Developers Conference next week. That’s what it did in 2009 when it revealed Modern Warfare 2 for the first time. Raven Software and Sledgehammer games are reportedly helping Infinity Ward finish the game. The font for the counter uses the typical Call of Duty style. And teasers are pretty common in the video game industry as multimillion dollar marketing campaigns for blockbuster games begin far ahead of the launch date for a game, in hopes of spreading awareness far and wide. Companies: Activision Blizzard People: Makarov
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| OnLive will give you a free console if you buy a game Posted: 25 Feb 2011 02:17 PM PST
OnLive is announcing today that anyone who pre-orders the THQ video game Homefront from Feb. 25 to Mar. 14 will get a free version of the OnLive Game System — a $99 value. The customer will also get access to THQ’s Metro 2033 video game for free. It’s not a bad way for OnLive to get a wider reach for its game system, which allows users to play high-quality games on any PC or TV. And it’s the kind of deal that competitors won’t be able to match. Homefront will cost $49 on OnLive. Homefront is one of THQ’s biggest games of the year. It’s a futuristic first-person shooter game where North Korea invades the U.S. and the war-ravaged citizenry fights back after the U.S. is occupied. The deal will last while supplies of the MicroConsole last. OnLive has created a server-based online gaming service that allows you to instantly play games that are stored and computed in OnLive’s data centers. The video and game actions are transmitted over a broadband connection to wherever you are playing. That allows you to play high-end games on low-end computers, while the MicroConsole lets you play high-end games on big-screen TVs. "This is a watershed event: It's the first time a game system has ever been given away with the purchase of a game," said OnLive chief executive Steve Perlman. "Homefront is one of the biggest games coming out this quarter, and we wanted gamers to see just how incredible is to have the hottest title playable with the instant-play, massive spectating experience on their HDTV that is only possible through OnLive.” The MicroConsole TV adapter and a wireless controller allow gamers to play high-end computer games on flat-panel displays in 1080p high-definition running at 60 frames per second, or faster than a blink of the eye. OnLive started shipping the Onlive Game System in December, and at that time it offered a free game with purchase. OnLive launched its instantly playable server games in June. If customers truly like it, the cheap MicroConsole hardware could potentially eliminate the need for players to keep buying more and more powerful and expensive game consoles. OnLive has more than 70 games in its online games library now. If the company can grow that number, then it will have a bigger impact on consumers. OnLive has been working on its server-based technology for more than eight years and has a team of 200 people. It has raised a considerable amount of money for the task from investors such as Warner Bros. and British Telecom. Most recently, it raised $40 million from HTC in a deal that could possibly value OnLive at $1.8 billion. People: Steve Perlman
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| Watch out, Tesla and Fisker! More luxury carmakers go electric Posted: 25 Feb 2011 02:04 PM PST
We’ve written before about how major automakers like Nissan, Ford and GM are plowing forth with electric car and hybrid offerings. Nissan, in particular, wants to grab 20 percent of the global electric cars market. But luxury automakers are getting into the game, too. Could it mean competition for luxury electric car startups like Tesla and Fisker? Big news on this came from BMW recently. First, the company is launching an entire eco-friendly sub-brand of its cars, called “i.” The lineup includes the i3 all-electric city car and the i8 plug-in hybrid sports car. It is also piloting 1,000 ActiveE electrified BMW coupes, testing out a car sharing service and just said it would launch a $100 million venture capital fund to invest in transportation-related services. It has already backed My City Way, which makes a smartphone application that helps users find nearby services like bathrooms and restaurants. Rolls Royce also plans to trot out a plug-in hybrid, the Phantom 102EX, which the company’s chief executive called the “first battery electric vehicle for the ultra-luxury segment.”
While Nissan is best known in the electric car world for its all-electric Leaf hatchback that went on sale in December, it’s also launching a sporty electric car. The Esflow, pictured on the right, can do zero to 62 miles per hour in less than five seconds and the company is promising 150 miles of range on a fully charged battery. Of course, the Tesla Roadster has been available for a few years now, and the company has a lot of fans. Fisker is also launching a sports car plug-in hybrid, the Karma, with a $95,500 price tag. The car has gone through several rounds of delays and price increases over the past few years, and arguably no longer has first-mover advantages in the luxury plug-in hybrid segment. Who do you think will be next in the luxury electric car game? Will there be an electric Ferrari coming out any time soon? How about a hybrid Hummer? Better yet … a hybrid Hummer limo? Companies: Bmw, Fisker, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rolls Royce, Tesla
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| Posted: 25 Feb 2011 12:02 PM PST Here’s the latest action we’re following today on the GreenBeat:
Germany cuts solar subsidies by 15 percent — The cuts came six months earlier than planned, according to Reuters. The solar industry has long been jittery about German plans to reduce subsidies. Its generous incentives for solar project allowed the country to make up nearly half of last year’s global demand for photovoltaic panels. HelioVolt could be acquired — The venture-backed thin-film firm based in Austin, Tex. is “in discussion to be acquired,” according to a company executive who spoke with Greentech Media. The executive, Iga Hallberg, referred to Fortune 100 companies that are interested in buying HelioVolt and said they expect to make an announcement in “a matter of weeks.” The company recently raised $8.5 million through the sale of debt securities and was looking to raise another $1.5 million, according to SEC filings. First Solar looks for growing markets – The company released its fourth quarter 2010 earnings yesterday that showed declining sales and said it was looking to expand to new and developing markets like India, China, Australia and the Middle East, Earth2Tech writes. Demand in Europe has been expected to slow this year due to cutbacks in government subsidies that previously drove demand, though some have argued stronger than expected demand in the U.S. and Italy will make up for it, at least for the first quarter of the year. Ethanol support could fall in national budget cuts — Ethanol supporter and congressman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he would be willing to “bite the bullet” and allow ethanol supports to fall if it was necessary to cut down the national deficit. In particular, a bill circulating the Senate would bar the EPA from increasing the percentage of ethanol in gasoline and offering subsidies for gas stations retrofitted to sell E15 (15 percent ethanol), Autoblog Green writes. Companies: DOE, EPA, First Solar, HelioVolt, US Geothermal People: Chuck Grassley, Iga Hallberg
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| Do CFL lights suck? ‘Save the light bulb’ campaign has Ron Paul on board Posted: 25 Feb 2011 10:30 AM PST
Congressman Ron Paul, in some circles considered the “spiritual father of the Tea Party,” isn’t too happy with the U.S. mandate that light bulbs become 30 percent more efficient by 2012 to 2014, phasing in a set of standards that will arguably ban incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient options like compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), halogen and LED lighting. Paul, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) along with 19 other Republican members of Congress, have proposed legislation to repeal the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, according to USA Today. The legislation was signed into law in 2007 by President Bush. “I don’t think CFLs are going to wind up saving that much energy and they’re certainly much more harmful to public health,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) in an interview with the WSJ’s Opinion Journal, referring to mercury inside CFLs and the higher price tags. “I don’t think the country wants Congress to tell them what kind of light bulb to use.” Some have argued that the small amounts of mercury inside CFLs, if they break, do not pose a health danger. The EPA has spoken in the past about the need to recycle CFLs to keep the mercury out of landfills; it has also argued that CFLs actually emit less mercury because they use less energy from coal-burning plants, which emit large amounts of mercury into the air. If you wondered what Republican control of the House means for cleantech, then this is a good case to consider. The argument from politicians and certain constituents seems to be that they disagree with government limitation of their energy choices and argue that CFLs can cause health problems like headaches. There’s been similar types of antagonistic sentiment over smart meter rollouts and government support for research and implementation of renewables. If the “let me choose my own energy” side wins, though, it could slow down efforts to bring the country closer to President Obama’s goal of 80 percent renewable energy by 2035. One political activist site, Freedom Action, released a statement calling the legislation an “outrageous ban” and “outrageous government limitation on consumer choice and intrusion into the home of every American.” A petition to support undoing the ban can be viewed online at FreeOurLight.org. Freedom Action even created a (surely intentionally?) hilarious video, below, that shows a man buying light bulbs off an illicit “dealer” on the street. “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” he says as a man pimping cigarettes and plastic bags produces an Edison bulb out of his pocket. He then makes the buyer take a sip of Coca-Cola to prove he’s “not a cop.” The video ends ominously: “Don’t let this be America’s future.” Not everyone knows about efficiency legislation that will effectively phase out incandescent light bulbs, although Ikea said in January it will no longer sell them. A survey conducted by Harris Interactive this year found that 61 percent of Americans aren’t aware of this legislation. A Wall Street Journal editorial from 2009 argued that CFLs aren’t advanced enough to completely replace incandescents. LED makers have seen technological improvements and price drops over the past few years. Companies like Bridgelux say there’s increasing demand for LED solutions in retail settings, where lights are on for 16 to 24 hours and companies are looking for ways to trim their electricity bills and environmental footprint. Is this campaign a political ploy, or do you want to see the Edison light bulb stay? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. [Bottom image via Wikipedia Commons, top image via Flickr/AZAdam] People: Joe Barton, Ron Paul
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| Ravenwood Fair passes 10M users and keeps growing (exclusive) Posted: 25 Feb 2011 09:56 AM PST
About 3.3 million players have purchased virtual goods in the game to date, a higher proportion than in most social games. The game is free for users to start playing, but players can pay real money for virtual goods such as energy to do more tasks. On average, players are spending 90 cents per transaction, with the minimum possible transaction at 10 cents, or 1 Facebook Credit. About 14 percent of users buy something daily. About 85 percent of users make a direct purchase with credit cards or other means such as text message payments. About 15 percent pay via alternative payments such as offer deals (for example, an offer of game currency in return for signing up for Netflix) and group buys. If LOLapps advertises to get a user, and that user spends 8 or more minutes playing in their first session, the average lifetime spending by that user in the game will be at least $6. LOLapps says the reason that social gaming works so well is the nature of friend networks. A user whose friends are connected with each other is 7 to 10 times more valuable than a user whose friends do not know each other. Players who have at least three friends who have made a purchase have a 60 percent chance of making a purchase themselves. (That may be due to reciprocity, where one friend sends a gift and the other one sends one back). Players who have at least six friends who have made a purchase have an 80 percent chance of making a purchase themselves.
As we've noted in past stories, San Francisco-based LOLapps has about 100 million monthly active users on Facebook, mostly for its gift and quiz apps. This year, the company stepped up its investment in social games. Ravenwood Fair was developed by consultant John Romero, co-creator of Doom. In an interview, Romero said he put more emphasis on keeping users engaged so they would play for longer sessions and keep coming back. The effort is part of LOLapps' strategy to become a big player in social games and join the ranks of Zynga, EA-Playfish, Disney-Playdom, and CrowdStar. Those companies have been printing money by creating simple casual games that entice users to buy virtual goods. LOLapps announced an expansion this week called Ravenstone Mine, also designed by game creator John Romero. But the company has decided to delay the launch of the expansion a few weeks as it refines the game. Perhaps the company is designing the game so that it gets the same kind of results as Ravenwood Fair. People: John Romero
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| Google takes aim at low-quality sites in search, Demand Media unfazed Posted: 25 Feb 2011 09:20 AM PST
But notorious content farm Demand Media — who some think that Google was specifically targeting with its update — seems unfazed by the news. The site is best known for churning out tons of content aimed specifically at search engines — hence the term content farm. Google says its algorithm improvement “noticeably impacts 11.8 percent” of queries. It describes low-quality sites as those “which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.” Those sites’ rankings will go down, while high-quality sites that feature “original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, [and] thoughtful analysis” will rise. In a blog post, Demand’s EVP of media and operations Larry Fitzgibbon seemed overly understanding of Google’s need to improve the consumer searching experience. “We have built our business by focusing on creating the useful and original content that meets the specific needs of today's consumer,” he said. “So naturally we applaud changes search engines make to improve the consumer experience – it's both the right thing to do and our focus as well.” Fitzgibbon went on to say that Demand’s content library saw some ups and downs following Google’s algorithm change. “It's impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long-term – but at this point in time, we haven't seen a material net impact on our Content & Media business,” he said. In its first earnings call as a public company, Demand’s chief executive Richard Rosenblatt defended the company’s reputation. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t consider the site a content farm. Google says that it isn’t relying on feedback from the new Personal Blocklist Chrome extension for the algorithm changes. But in a comparison between the Blocklist data and the sites flagged by the new algorithm, Google found that the algorithm change addresses 84 percent of the most-blocked domains by users of the extension. That’s a big confirmation that the algorithm changes will be mostly beneficial to users, even though some companies may be hurt in the process. Companies: Demand Media, Google People: Larry Fitzgibbon, Richard Rosenblatt
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A new business called 
San Francisco startup 
The new Verizon iPhone may have antenna issues that are similar to its counterpart on AT&T, 
Normally, you get free games when you buy a video game console. But with 
Electric cars are getting blinged out.
Mercedes-Benz has also been dabbling with green cars. It has been leasing fuel-cell powered vehicles (the 
Oregon geothermal project wins $96.8 million loan guarantee – The Department of Energy has 
It’s surprising to see people get worked up about light bulbs. But the country’s government-mandated shift to more energy-efficient lighting is raising the ire of conservatives.
The shelf life of a video game in stores is measured in days or weeks these days. But online, games can live — and grow sales — longer. 
That means 10 million users will log in during a month. About 1.2 million users log in every day. Those details are all that most social game companies disclose about their games. But LOLapps is disclosing more details as a kind of guide post to show how successful social games can be. Indeed, the results show that a single hit game can turn into a cash cow for a game publisher if the game is designed so that users have to buy something.
Other stats show that players are busy. They’ve chopped down 40.2 million trees in the forest, sent 8.3 million gifts, killed 3.1 million monsters, and stocked more than 92.3 million attractions. Total hours spent to date in the game add up to 25 million. The game is also available on Orkut, IMVU, and StudiVZ, and it will be out soon on Japan’s Mixi mobile phones.
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