Harvest Moon Fan Art

Venture capitalist Tim Chang describes the white-hot landscape of game investments

In his talk, Chang said that the PopCap-EA deal and the Zynga IPO will keep the game market frothy for the next six to 12 months; but that frothiness it won’t last. That means game entrepreneurs should load up on funding now and prepare for the day when it will be a lot harder to raise money. At that point, companies that don’t have enough cash will be bought. The other strategy is to sell out while the market is hot. As a result, it’s both a tougher time for investors and a frothy time. Valuations are very high and costs are going up as the path to success becomes tougher.

“Expectations for valuations are extremely high, but we’re also facing a pending consolidation,” Chang said. “We are reaching this breaking point as companies expect higher values while their marketing and distribution costs are going up. …We are starting to see the sun set a little bit. There is a big question mark about how long these frothy valuations will be sustained.”

What else is hot out there?

He also said he invested in Badgeville as a leader in gamification, even though there has been a lot of backlash in the past year as people say that gamification is overhyped. Chang said he is also excited about SocialVibe , a company where he is a board observer. SocialVibe provides measurable engagement marketing for social media campaigns.

Chang said that Kixeye (maker of Battle Pirates — pictured right — on Facebook) is raising a giant round at high valuations, and so is Kabam , the maker of hardcore Facebook games that already raised $85 million this spring. These are so-called “mid-core” companies, where they’re not as intense as console games but are heading in that direction.

“They are pursuing the notion of next-generation social gaming, instead of the standard FarmVille copycat,” he said. “They are bringing deeper game mechanics such as real-time strategy games and proving that you can get higher ARPUs (average revenue per user) even though you may not have a higher user base.”

Mobile gaming is also hot, with Rovio, TinyCo, and Pocket Gems all raising rounds. They have more hope to grow, since Zynga doesn’t dominate mobile as it does Facebook. After Ngmoco’s acquisition, a number of VCs have jumped into the market to find the next hit maker. The makers of hot pet, farm, fish and city-building games are aggregating large user bases and are turning around to create distribution power. There’s lots of copycatting in this space.

Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon Review

Formula. You still grow your agrarian empire one freshly-picked vegetable at a time. You start by planting a little batch of turnip seeds, then sell your tubular tubers for a profit, which you use to buy more seeds, growing more cash crops, et cetera, et cetera. Soon. you’ve got countless acres under your command, complete with state-of-the-art tools, robust livestock and diligent helpers, all working to make you enough money to afford that next upgrade. ). Your helpers are decommissioned battlebots reconfigured to perform the farmwork drudgery, and they place the fruits (and vegetables) of their labors into Jetsonesque shipping tubes that whisk your produce away to the supermarket. In town, you can visit the gigantic hydroponic farms that made the spirits mad in the first place, or see what the kids are learning at school on their humungous flat-screen blackboard. It looks great, too. The backgrounds, while cartoonish, are lush and colorful. Seasonal touches such as gently falling cherry blossom petals or wind-lashed leaves whipping by during a thunderstorm add a touch of the new as the days pass. As you explore the island, there always seems to be something pretty to look at, whether it’s a beautiful lake inside of a cave, the sleek lines of a futuristic skyscraper, or a concept installation created by the town’s eccentric artist. has also made some improvements to the controls, avoiding some common frustrations in past installments. You can walk right through planted crops, so you now won’t experience the impotent despair of seeing a ripe strawberry desperate to be plucked but surrounded by strangely impassible seedlings. You’re also allowed to place seeds wherever the heck you want, instead of the same block of nine squares of farmland. The game is also smart enough to keep you from making mistakes: you can’t accidentally throw harvested crops away or erroneously cut down your prized cucumber plant. Heck, it won’t even let you water the same square twice, which is a godsend when you have to keep refilling that dang watering can every twenty-five squares. These changes seem small on the surface, but by removing those minor sources of irritation, they make the daily grind of planting, watering, and harvesting far more enjoyable, and allow you to explore the rest of the game. And while there are plenty of ways to goof off when you’re done working, the additional content have numerous weaknesses.

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