People crave community. We are social creatures. Today, we are social networking creatures. We do loads of things communally. We edit content communally on Wikipedia and we play multiplayer online role-playing games with a global community of “friends”. One of the most fascinating talks I attended last winter was at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (read prior FanTrust blog coverage here) -- on the topic of How Wikipedia is Like a Multiplayer Game: it is addictive to its core community, has its own system of guilds and includes a crazy cast of real-life ...

Business models for virtual worlds and casual games are converging. As I mentioned in the blog “Money, Money, Money, Money”, players of the virtual worlds Second Life and Habbo Hotel are encouraged at every turn to purchase virtual goods in order to pimp their islands and their bedrooms. In Nexon's Maple Story, fans can purchase Minicooper cars for their avatar to drive. In the first few months, Nexon sold 120K cars for $10 each - $1.2 million in sales. ...

What is the changing face of gamers? If yesterday’s sweet spot used to be the geeky, single, 18-34 year old male with disposable income who played increasingly complex games on average 30-hours per week, then today’s demographic looks like the polar opposite: grandmotherly pensioners and pre-tweens snacking on casual portal games. From the very old to the very young, these “bookend” generations are changing the face of gaming and the business models at its core. There are all kinds of strange signs that gaming is changing. With the recent release of ...

Currently, there is no one model for financing a digital entertainment project - or a digital company, for that matter. Investors the world over all seem to look for the same things, whether you are in the old-fashioned widget business or the digital media business. Investors that I have worked with over the years all want to see: A great management team – source world-class talent A specific niche within the competitive landscape – you want some competition; Pepsi isn’t Pepsi without Coke A solid business plan and revenue model – use standard financial models, especially when projecting crazy-strange digital ideas Audience and Traffic; including ...

There are two ways to float the boat: financing and revenue generation. I am happy to talk about money from both ends. In general, digital deal-making is like the wild west. Business models are so varied that it may not even be obvious who is buying and who is selling. For example, is a portal going to pay a producer for a content license or charge a producer for a content placement? The first way sounds like a standard TV deal, the second way sounds just like an ad-buy. Is digital content intrinsically valuable or is it an advertisement for a brand, ...