Wonderland

Raising VC for a game

Nice straightforward piece on the difference between VC funding and Publisher funding your game:

It’s a good idea to consider a number of funding options when building a company and it’s important to understand the differences between each option. The table below outlines a number of differences between VC investment and publishers:

Venture Capital	Traditional Publisher
Invest in the company	Invest in the game
No revenue share	Revenue share
No help with distribution, production, research, or other services	Help with distribution, production, research, or other services
No ownership of the IP	Take ownership of the IP
No creative control	Take creative control
No production/scheduling control	Take production control
No milestones	Withhold funding based on milestones
Take board seats	Do not take board seats

 It's the first in a series of posts, apparently.

Amazing evil Barbie pics + videogame review

I rouse from my non-blogging slumber, awakened by the most amazing set of Barbie pictures I've seen in ages and probably seen once before but forgotten because I didn't blog 'em (outboard brain!). 

LOOK AT THIS. I've been laughing for 5 minutes straight.

And, wait, it gets better. These were linked in the comments section of the best videogame review I've read in ages, too. John Walker at RPS, covering Barbie Dreamhouse Party. 

Things begin innocently enough. Barbie, controlled in the third person, is prancing around her lavish Dreamhouse entranceway. It’s a clumsy menu screen of sorts, in which options are accessed by going upstairs, and down the corridor on the left. But it also features Barbie’s on-again off-again love interest, Ken, another ladyfriend upstairs, and some dickhole playing a guitar. There’s already access to playing dress-up at this point, but things don’t start to get weird until you speak to someone. Then… then it just seems to get really damned sarcastic. Take a look:

Still laughing! 

Read the rest of the review, do. It'll make your day.

(Thanks Seb!)