DISQUS

JFamie · 11 months ago

Hmmm. Wonder how many business plans from over the years that certain people had access to because of their position and board seats were used as a basis for this company. Just asking...

wow gold · 10 months ago

I read from another article that they're developing flash-based MMORPGs... very interesting business model as we've seen flash players develop quite fast over recent years.

Can't wait to see what Ohai comes up with!

Mike · 10 months ago

Casual games and MMORPGs are opposite poles on the spectrum in terms of level of required engagement, attention, commitment, etc. They're antithetical. The far greater market opportunity is in casual games (e.g., witness Wii, Scrabulous, etc.) and the research shows people prefer to play casual games with their family & closest friends, not strangers (which MMORPGs must play to, of course, given the way they're designed). XBox Live has supported several casual titles where users can challenge strangers online but these have not been very successful.

Also, of course games are a Hollywood, hits-driven business. The reason Blake was successful on Facebook was that he was able to quickly iterate & modify game engines (witness Vampires begets Zombies). Analogy: small, indie films. Putting all their wood behind just one massive game environment sounds a very risky business model and strange that the normally conservative August Capital would bite at this.

Note, Susan came from Charles River Ventures but why didn't they choose to invest? Kinda concerning...