Editor’s Note: Tadhg Kelly is a game designer with 20 years experience. He is the creator of the leading game design blog What Games Are, and consults for many companies on game design and development. You can follow him on Twitter here.
The really big change that social games brought about was proving that the Asian model of monetising games through virtual goods and other free-to-play… → Read More
Following its November partnership with TinyCo, social games outfit ngmoco (now a DeNA-owned company) is partnering with game publisher Glu Mobile, Inc. The deal will brings Glu’s popular Gun Bros game to ngmoco’s Mobage gaming platform for Android.
No word yet on whether the rest of Glu’s titles – many of which are more well-known than Gun Bros – will port over as well. → Read More
AT&T and mobile social games company ngmoco, which is owned by Japanese gaming giant DeNA, have just announced a pretty significant agreement to bring the Mobage social gaming platform to AT&T Android customers.
According to a release, Mobage will serve as a hub for AT&T Android users to discover and play games, as well as connect and communicate with other players worldwide. → Read More
Is the world ready for the mobile social gaming revolution? Tokyo-based DeNA, the company that makes $1.3 billion a year just by offering mobile games to Japanese cell phone users and acquired ngmoco for $400 million in December, seems to think so. DeNA/ngmoco released an English (and Chinese) version of Mobage, its super-successful Japanese mobile social gaming platform on Android yesterday. → Read More
Exclusive – U.S.-based mobile games developer ngmoco was acquired by Japanese social games publisher DeNA in October 2010, but that doesn’t mean it stopped looking at opportunities to grow through acquisitions of its own, particularly in regions other than Asia and the United States.
TechCrunch has learned that the company has just acquired longtime game development partner Rough Cookie to boost… → Read More
If you are a entrepreneur– especially a first time entrepreneur or an entrepreneur outside of Silicon Valley– you need to stop what you are doing and watch this video. Yes, it is 45 minutes long. But it’s worth it.
Last night at a Founder Institute event, super angel Mike Maples gave a talk about what he calls “pivots” and “thunder lizards.” Thunder lizards are startups born from atomic eggs… → Read More
Yesterday, Japanese mobile gaming company DeNa announced its acquisition of iPhone gaming startup ngmoco for up to $400 million. (We first reported on the acquisition talks here). The price includes $300 million up front in cash and stock, plus another $100 million earnout if ngmoco hits certain performance milestones. We also reported yesterday that ngmoco’s largest investor, Kleiner Perkins… → Read More
It’s a good day for ngmoco, which was just acquired by Japan’s DeNA for up to $400 million. But it’s also a good day for ngmoco’s first investor, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In one deal they’ve completely paid off their controversial first iFund, a $100 million fund to spur iPhone app development.
Kleiner invested just a little over $10 million of the $45 million that ngmoco raised in… → Read More
An update to our post last week on Japan’s DeNA mulling over an acquisition of San Francisco based social gaming startup ngmoco. The deal is supposedly done and will be announced shortly, possibly on Tuesday.
Update: and there we go. Up to $400 million in cash and stock it is.
The price we reported, $400 million or so, is in the ballpark, says a new source. And part of the reason ngmoco, with… → Read More
Japanese gaming company DeNA is considering an acquisition of San Francisco-based ngmoco, we’ve heard from multiple sources. The price, says one source, is north of $400 million, although that probably includes a very large earnout. ngmoco specializes in iPhone/iPad/iPod social games.
It has been called “Zynga for iPhone” and actually shares a board member with Zynga – Kleiner Perkins partner and… → Read More
Google Ventures, the VC arm of the search giant, has made an investment in popular iPhone/iPad game developer ngmoco, say multiple sources. The company, which is already profitable, took the money as part of a new round of funding — probably in the $3-5 million range. ngmoco currently has some very popular games on iOS, including ‘We Farm’, which is currently the second most popular game on the… → Read More
In terms of the hardware, one of the only completely new features on the iPhone 4 is the gyroscope. It’s so new, in fact, that third-party developers haven’t had a chance to play around with it yet because they didn’t have access to the iPhone 4 hardware until today (or at least two days ago). And because they didn’t have the hardware, that means there are a sad lack of apps that use the feature… → Read More
Neil Young, the CEO of iPhone game startup ngmoco, wants to “amass enough scale” to accelerate “away from the pack.” He just raised a $25 million series C round and acquired Freeverse, another top iPhone game developer, to help ngmoco keep moving forward. The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners, and existing shareholders Kleiner Perkins, Norwest Venture Parters, and Maples… → Read More
On Monday, ngmoco released worldwide its latest game for the iPhone and iPod Touch: Eliminate Pro. It’s been downloaded 500,000 times so far at a rate of about 25,000 an hour, currently making it the top free app in iTunes. The top paid app, Skeeball, also happens to be affiliated with ngmoco through its Plus+ social game network. ngmoco has had it’s own top paid apps as well, like Rolando, but… → Read More
iPhone game developer ngmoco is announcing today its own cross-promotion publishing network fro iPhone games. The publishing network, called Plus+, will be headed up by Simon Jeffery, the current president and COO of Sega of America. Prior to Sega, Jeffery was president of LucasArts. His new title at ngmoco will be chief publishing officer. This is a major hire for the iPhone game startup… → Read More
Kleiner Perkins is adding to its iFund portfolio of iPhone-focused startups. It’s latest investment is a series A round in stealth gaming company ngmoco. Kleiner partner Bing Gordon, formerly chief creative officer of Electronic Arts, will join the board (he is also on the board of Zynga, which KP also recently invested in through its regular fund). Ngmoco’s CEO is another EA refugee… → Read More
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