In a second round of investment, Abertay Dundee has awarded nine up-and-coming videogame companies a share of £225,000 from the £5 million Prototype Fund. The nine recipients of the £25,000 grants are based variously in Dundee, London and Liverpool and were chosen from a total of 47 applicants. They include graduate start-ups, mobile and social gaming studios, and audio engineering and voiceover recording specialists. More >
Taking place at Chelsea Football Club in London on November 14-15, the summit will feature leading European figures in social gaming. More >
Chinese social games company Happy Elements has raised $30 million in a second round of funding. The Beijing-based developer is one of Asia's top social game developers on Facebook, launching games such as My Fishbowl, Boss Vegas and Lounge Bar across various social networks. More >
Following several delays, a new SEC filing has revealed that Zynga will list its forthcoming IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol ZNGA. Zynga initially filed for the IPO back in July, aiming to raise near or above $20 billion in the sale of ten per cent of its shares. In what was described as an "unprecedented" move for a technology company, Zynga subsequently tweaked its stock structure to ensure CEO Mark Pincus has 70 times the voting power of those who buy shares. More >
TIGA CEO Richard Wilson has warned the UK government ignore's Ireland's ongoing drive to attract developers at its peril. A report issued earlier this week by Ireland's policy advisory board for enterprise and science Forfas set out recommendations to double the size of the Irish game industry's workforce within three years. More >
How much is a Chinese gamer worth? How do you make a $50,000 Flash game? Flash Game License co-founder Chris Hughes blows open the scene.
In the second part of our week-long series on Flash gaming, we find out what makes it so financially alluring to indie devs.
Cloud gaming service Gaikai has received new funding from Intel's investment organisation Intel Capital. The undisclosed amount came from a total of $24 million invested by Intel in eight different companies, including gaming analytics firm Swrve - who you can read more about in the next issue of Edge magazine, out September 27. "The best computing experiences unite leading-edge hardware with amazing software," said Intel executive vice president Arvind Sodhani. "These investments in best-of-breed software vendors play an integral part in Intel's software strategy by fueling the creation of compelling and unique user experiences across devices."
Square Enix plans to grow the staff count at Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Thief 4 developer Eidos Montreal from 330 to 680 over the next three years, La Presse Affaires reported Thursday (via Montreal Gazette). It said the publisher intends to add 100 new employees by the end of 2012 and the remainder by 2015, making it the city’s third largest studio behind Ubisoft Montreal and Electronic Arts Montreal. Following negotiations with the Quebec government, Square Enix has reportedly been assured a $2 million subsidy from Investissement Québec to facilitate the growth. The news comes a week after the publisher launched the critically acclaimed Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which debuted atop the UK all formats chart on Tuesday.
Founders and management cash in on success of Limbo to reach closer to true independence.
1Ville Heijari said recently that the Angry Birds developer would value itself "somewhere, I dunno, maybe north of PopCap," but the studio is considering a round of fundraising that would see it valued at $1.2 billion - just shy of the $1.35 billion EA will pay if PopCap meets its earnings targets. Bloomberg reports that interested parties include Disney, Electronic Arts, and Zynga.
Bloomberg reports that Japanese analysts and investors are beginning to call on Nintendo to move or buy into the smartphone market, though only one - Tetsuro Li, of Commons Asset Management - is a confirmed holder of Nintendo stock. "Nintendo should aggressively make acquisitions or increase return to its shareholders," he said. "It's management's task to consider how to make use of the cash." Securities firm MF Global FXA went further, telling investors to "sell the stock, because a management once feted for creative thinking have just shown how behind the times they are."
6Unity Technologies, provider of the increasingly popular Unity game development platform, has announced plans to launch a subsidiary in South Korea. Led by country manager William Hugo Yang, a former analyst and consultant in the Korean gaming industry, Unity Korea will serve as a localisation and support centre for future Unity expansion in the country. Yang said: "As the Korean development community continues to grow, we will provide our expanding Korean user base fully localised tools and documentation, as well as dedicated technical support." Unity CEO David Helgason added: "Our strong following in the Korean developer community tells us that Unity is the perfect solution for Korea's dynamic games industry, which requires a cross platform solution enabling casual, MMORPG, mobile, PC and console games development on current and emerging platforms." Earlier this month Unity secured $12 million in a Series B financing round, part of which the firm said would be used to help it push into the Asian market.
Social gaming company CrowdStar has announced that it is to allocate up to $10 million for investment in "innovative game developers" through a partnership with YouWeb called StarFund. The fund will offer up to $250,000 to developers to allow them to create social or mobile games, while CrowdStar will also provide marketing and analytic assistance. "YouWeb’s mission is helping entrepreneurs build successful products and business models," said YouWeb founder Peter Relan. "As such, StarFund is an ideal partnership for us, because ultimately the mobile entrepreneur wins."
Government grant to help the Too Human maker create 80 jobs. Studio also working on a new development engine and plans to self-publish future titles.
Papa & Yo, Eufloria and Okabu the first to benefit from Sony's renewed commitment to its Pub Fund.
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Regulator publishes interactive map of UK broadband speeds; average connection just 7.5Mbit per second.
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232 million monthly active users helped the social gaming giant turn a $90.6 million profit last year, on revenue of $597.5 million.
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IPO could be filed as early as today, sources claim; Zynga valued at more than EA and Activision combined.
Following a sale of stock in London-based Moshi Monsters developer Mind Candy, the company has been revalued at £125 ($200) million. "We think there is a long way to go for Mind Candy," said Thomas Teichman, chairman of investment firm Spark Ventures. "But after six years, when you see a return of 1,400 per cent, it's not a bad idea to take some profit. Since we last valued it, the volume of business has boomed in licensing, subscriptions, selling the magazine in the shops. That is why the value has gone up. What's interesting is that it's come from digital - online to offline, that's unique."