This is kind of interesting, especially since so many people around here were absolutely positive that freemium games would be the death knell of ngmoco. According to TechCrunch, DeNA, the same Japanese company that has been pumping money in to OpenFeint is courting ngmoco to the tune of over $400,000,000. http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/07/japans-dena-mulling-400-million-acquisition-of-ngmoco/ So, apparently, someone is buying those Touch Pets Dogs food packs.
Sad end, kinda depressing. I went through my Ngmoco phase, and they haven't put anything out that interests me anymore. We Rule was novel at first, then it became tedious, same with the rest of their 'We' series.
I'm not sure if this is better than all the know it alls in the iPad release thread or not. I'm thinking this might be better just because of how much the freemium model sent so many people in to a fit of frothing rage who were sure ngmoco was going to fail because of it.
why would they buy it for 400 million??? theyve only made 40 million in all, it seems insane to purchase it for so much money
They've soaked up $40m in outside investments, how much they've made back from that isn't public information.
That... uhm... side of the world seems to be a little more open minded about microtransactions, what with all their MMOs cashing in on the idea, I wonder if it's any coincidence it's a Japanese company making the offer. Is iPhone gaming even popular in Asia?
Ok so we were wrong, please don't rub it in our faces But seriously, who on earth pays for their crap? I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a few rich people that got addicted and decided to put loads of money into it.
Yeah, you guys, arta is right. It's more likely yen. In US, $400M yen would be in the neighborhood of $4-$5M USD, which is much more reasonable.
I don't really care for ngmoco games either, but it's clearly US $ according to the article, not Yen.
I'm still finding this hard to believe. I read that ngmoco have only made an investment of $45 million, which I know sounds a lot, but compared to other publishers/developers such as Gameloft, EA, Chillingo etc that's probably nothing. Combine that with the fact that freemium games on the iPhone haven't exactly proven themselves successful or reliable for the future (they could easily die out, and I think we are seeing this already) so I really don't think they are worth anywhere near $400 million. I'll only believe it when I see it.
I'm surprised that people are still trying to armchair expert this. DeNA is a Japanese company, and Japanese business ethics are a hell of a lot different than they are in the USA. Before this was even ever dreamed of being made public, DeNA almost assuredly had more analysts and accountants making six figure salaries than I could even imagine as part of their due diligence while researching this deal. Like it or not, people are making a ridiculous amount of cash on freemium games, and DeNA is trying to build some kind of worldwide conglomerate of daily active users. Ngmoco fits perfectly in to that.
Ugh what ever happend to good ole games like both tokamaks? They should have made the third then done all this freemium crap nobody buys
