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February 12, 2007
Why VCs Are Investing In Gaming Again - Insights From Go4Venture
Go4Venture has some good analysis of venture capital's new interest in games developers in its newsletter this month. Referring to the New Enterprise Associates big investment in Scotland's RealTime Worlds, the corporate finance firm writes, "Gaming investments are back in favour. For many years VCs were concerned with the risks linked to the long cycles of game consoles successive generations."
Investors are seeing risks "somewhat reduced by new ways of exploiting the same content online and on mobile" and they are backing the creative minds, as opposed to the studios, points out Go4Venture.
The choice is whether to back the franchise or to back the creative guy with a track record. This is a case in point with Realtime Worlds: CEO David Jones was behind many iconic titles since the early 1990s such as ‘Lemmings’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’. Chairman Ian Hetherington is also an experienced hand, having founded and run Psygnosis, which he sold to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for an undisclosed sum in 1993. Such résumés give investors comfort even before considering that Jones and Hetherington had worked together from as early as 1991.
And Go4Venture notes that NEA has also pulled an about face in its stance on European investment.
It was only 18 months ago that a NEA cofounder commented that Europe was a nice place to visit rather than invest in. Now NEA has made an investment that is considerable by European standards.
View - Go4Venture
Read - Silicon Valley VC Invests $31M In Famous Scottish Games Dev Team
Posted on February 12, 2007 05:57 AM | Posted to Games (PC and other) | Permalink
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