Playfirst gets 5 million more in VC

[Mike Boeh]

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7751

San Francisco-based casual game publisher and distributor PlayFirst has announced that it has raised $5 million in its Series B financing round, led by Rustic Canyon Partners. Existing investors, including Mayfield Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures, also joined the round, and as a result, Nate Redmond from Rustic Canyon will join PlayFirst's board of directors.

Just another sign of how legitimate the industry is....

[KNau]

Absolutely. Endless infusions of misguided venture capital worked great for the dot com industry back in the late 90s.

[arcadetown]

Unlike the late pre bubble burst times, the internet has come of age and there's lots of companies making very solid and real $$. $5 mil while sounding like a lot is still peanuts in the big scheme of things and shows how far this industry has left to grow.

[svero]

Well if you consider that a single hit game can make several million in sales, and that the average budget for a casual title is still generally < 100k... 5 million is ~40-50 games worth (probably more) if you only spent it financing and buying games. A single hit and a number of decent sellers out of those would cover that real easy. 2 Hits would give you return on investment.

Course Im not saying playfirst is going to turn around and buy or finance 50 games. They likely have other ways to use that money, like expanding and improving their own distrubution network.. but I don't see it as a crazy amount of money all thigns considered. Seems pretty conservative really.

[Bmc]

5 million isn't much money(in the grand scheme of things). if this was the movie biz that would be barely enough for a low-budget hollywood movie.

[tentons]

Well if you consider that a single hit game can make several million in sales...
You make it sound easy. :)

[svero]

You make it sound easy. :)

Well I did give them only 1-2 hits in 50 games...

- S

[mahlzeit]

if this was the movie biz that would be barely enough for a low-budget hollywood movie.
Well, maybe at some point game designers become so famous they can ask $10 million to do some work on a game. ;)

[cliffski]

thats already the case with 3 or 4 of them.