01
Feb
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GameStick Kickstarter Comes To A Very Successful Close With 648% Funding

Posted by in Games, News

GameStick, the Kickstarter project that promises to "put big screen gaming in your pocket," has seen controversies, redesigns, and other fun things during its 30 day funding period; but alas, that time has come to an end and now there's work to be done. Lots of work, in fact – the funding was met with incredible fervor, with the project closing at 648% of the original $100,000 goal.

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As mentioned earlier, the design you see above is far from the final look of GameStick, which underwent a full redesign close to the end of the campaign. The "new" GameStick is far more ergonomic, has a custom charging dock and microSD card slot, and more.

17
Dec
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Sprint Is Buying 100% Of Clearwire For $2.2bn, Will Invest $80m Per Month For 10 Months While Deal Awaits Approval

Posted by in News, Sprint

Today, Sprint announced that it would be spending $2.2bn to acquire the remaining (roughly) half of Clearwire that it doesn't already own. The transaction, which is naturally subject to regulatory approval, will give the carrier ownership of all of Clearwire's significant share of spectrum, which will be a huge boost to Sprint as it attempts to build out an LTE network to compete with Verizon and AT&T.

Of course, these deals can take forever to close, so in the meantime, the two companies have entered into a rather brilliant agreement: Sprint has promised to buy roughly $80m worth of Clearwire stock every month starting in January 2013 for up to ten months (or a total of $800m, and slightly more than 1/3rd of the total Clearwire purchase price).

17
Oct
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Color, The Multimedia Service That Could Never Figure Out What It Does, Is Closing Down According To Reports

Posted by in Applications, News

You'd be forgiven for not knowing exactly what Color is or does. The sordid history of this app, and its parent company Color Labs, is a complicated one. Headed by Bill Nguyen, famous for founding Lala, the incredible music streaming service that was purchased by Apple and promptly closed down, Color Labs received $41 million in funding for its initial app Color for Facebook. Several fundamental changes and a year and a half later, the company is reportedly going to close the books on itself. And I still don't know what it does.

According to VentureBeat, the following is part of an email that was sent to employees of Color Labs late last night:

I hope is all well with you.  As you may or may not have heard, Color is going through a number of changes.  Last week, the Board and major shareholders voted to wind down the company.

19
Jun
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Alpha Colony: A Tribute To M.U.L.E. Is A Great Example Of Increasing Kickstarter Abuse - And The Blurry Line It Sits Upon

Posted by in Apps/Games, Editorials, Games, Off-Topic
Last Updated: June 21st, 2012

Update: I've refined a few of my points in this article to focus less on the whole "how much it costs to make a video game" angle, because I'm not exactly an expert on project funding. I think the point I'm trying to illustrate about Kickstarter as a whole is now clearer, and articulated in a more generally-applicable manner.

Note: This piece is of tangential relation to Android (and it grew more tangential as I wrote it), but the game in question is a joint Kickstarter venture promising an Android game, M.U.L.E. Returns, as well as a multi-platform title, Alpha Colony: A Tribute To M.U.L.E.

15
Feb
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Double Fine Adventure's Next "Classic Point-And-Click Adventure" Game Is Headed For Android

Posted by in Android OS, Games, News
Last Updated: August 2nd, 2012

You may remember that a few days ago, Double Fine Adventure (the studio behind Psychonauts and Day of the Tentacle) did the impossible, far exceeding their project's $400,000 goal on Kickstarter in just over eight hours (the project has raised over $1 Million with 26 days to go). Initially, Double Fine planned to invest extra proceeds in developing the studio's latest game for other platforms, with iOS and Mac being priorities.

Tim Schafer, Double Fine's founder and an industry veteran, posted an update to the Kickstarter page today, announcing that the game will have support not only for Android, but for Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS.

18
Mar
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Rovio (Of Angry Birds Fame) Valued At Over $200 Million, Has Already Raised $42 Million In Funding

Posted by in Apps/Games, Games, News, Off-Topic

The success that the Angry Birds games have brought to Rovio is stunning, really: the company was reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy when it released the game, and today, revenue is estimated to be between $50 and 70 million annually. It's perhaps no surprise, then, that the company raised $42 million in funding earlier this month, and they enjoyed the luxury of picking and choosing their investors. They even reportedly determined the terms of investment - quite the reversal of roles.

Rovio's valuation is estimated to be over $200 million already, but the company hopes that's merely the beginning.