tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15478155197833147402024-03-05T12:35:13.563-08:00bizpunkbizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-70813573760064942052012-08-24T08:33:00.000-07:002012-08-24T09:36:55.737-07:00DeanBeat/OnLiveThe always-insightful Dean Takahashi wrote a long piece on The DeanBeat yesterday about the fall of OnLive. As the Series A investor in one of OnLive’s rivals, Gaikai, I was a pretty active observer of OnLive and of the cloud gaming market generally. I think Dean provides a thorough – if somewhat gentle – overview of the facts of OnLive’s collapse and his piece is totally worth reading.
That bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-70160729193158078902012-06-30T22:21:00.000-07:002012-07-01T23:52:24.508-07:00Sony acquires Gaikai for $380MMToday Sony announced an agreement to acquire Benchmark portfolio company Gaikai for $380MM in cash. In just four years, Gaikai built a revolutionary cloud technology platform for gaming. To see console-quality games streamed from the cloud to browsers, tablets and TV is truly magical. Congratulations to Gaikai on this tremendous achievement, and congratulations to Kaz Hirai and Andy House at Sonybizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-78461284248930696612012-06-21T10:33:00.000-07:002012-06-21T10:33:07.561-07:00NaturalMotionToday Benchmark announced an $11MM investment in NaturalMotion, a publisher of 3D games for mobile devices. I am joining NaturalMotion's board of directors.
Many people in the packaged-goods games business know NaturalMotion from their Euphoria and Morpheme 3D animation engines, which have been used in high-end console games to produce incredibly realistic character animation (if you've bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-54322772408200630022012-06-19T17:11:00.000-07:002012-06-21T12:20:09.416-07:00Euro 2012 Group Stage RecapOk, you can't deny this has been a very entertaining tournament so far. All of the final games of the group stage had stakes, and every pair of final matches in the groups had real drama. There was even some decent football.
There has been positive play and goals have been plentiful (not a single nil-nil draw in the group stage), including some real gems like Ibrahimovic's or Welbeck's or bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-66762942722462411592012-06-14T10:00:00.000-07:002012-06-14T10:09:31.716-07:00thatgamecompanyIf you've played Journey from Jenova Chen's thatgamecompany (TGC) you know you have experienced something strange and magical, something that feels totally unique and yet fun and full of the pleasures that games can deliver (and if you haven't played it, and you own a PS3, stop reading this post and go download it). If you've also played Flower and Flow, you know that Jenova is one of the bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-51398378724083182292012-06-05T17:17:00.000-07:002012-07-03T12:57:27.848-07:00Investing in Content
The other day, a friend sent me an introduction to a game company with a note saying, in effect, "I thought you might be interested in this since you invest in content."
Certainly, looking at some recent investments Benchmark has made, you might get that impression. Riot Games, Meteor/Adhesive, Red Robot Labs, and two as-yet unannounced new investments [subsequently announced: Jenova Chen's bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-86864837890324446502012-03-04T20:40:00.000-08:002012-03-04T20:57:22.191-08:00Sports Analytics: MIT Sloan Conference ImpressionsThe fascinating MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference which took place in Boston this weekend (and which I had the privilege to attend) is known affectionately by its attendees as "Dork-palooza" -- a celebration of the number crunchers and obsessive compulsive fans of sports statistics. Panelists, researchers, and attendees discussed a wide variety of topics with a very ambitious goal: to change bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-70826447751672035612012-02-27T19:57:00.006-08:002012-02-28T08:03:14.354-08:00Meteor, Hawken, and Free-to-Play GamingBenchmark Capital has announced an investment in Meteor Entertainment, the publishing company that will bring the amazing mech shooter Hawken to market, together with Adhesive Studios, later this year. This is going to be fun. First, I get to work with a remarkable new talent, Khang Le, and his team at Adhesive Studios in LA. I discovered Adhesive the same way everybody else did -- through bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-75867604806439510602011-02-05T07:56:00.000-08:002012-03-04T20:57:38.338-08:00Riot Games & TencentAs was widely reported yesterday, the Chinese internet giant Tencent has agreed to acquire a majority of the capital stock of Los Angeles-based Riot Games, a Benchmark portfolio company. The transaction is a huge validation of Riot's meteoric rise to prominence in the online game business. CEO Brandon Beck, his co-founder Marc Merrill and the team at Riot have executed their business plan bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com89tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-22964562507567420782010-12-03T10:58:00.001-08:002012-03-04T20:57:54.925-08:00World Cup 2018 & 2022 BidsWell, the mandarins at FIFA, one of the world's most venal and corrupt bureaucracies, have selected Russia and Qatar, respectively, as the sites for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
This would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic and so horribly, shockingly wrong for the sport. Let's just parse this for a minute. First, Russia. As a Spanish diplomat put it in one of the Wikileaks documents, bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-11244997215218080802010-11-23T07:53:00.000-08:002010-11-23T09:30:53.031-08:00MLS Cup FinalAt one point late in the second half of the dreadful MLS Cup Final, with both of these mediocre teams protecting the 1-1 scoreline and heading to extra-time, I was actually tempted to flip over to watch the LA Lakers-Golden State Warriors NBA game, despite the fact that LA was up by 30 at the time. Seemed like it might be more compelling.It's rare to get to use the words "scintillating" and "bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-31243310729652974312010-11-08T08:06:00.000-08:002010-11-08T08:56:19.004-08:00MLS Conference Finals SetIt was a bizarre weekend in the MLS playoffs. With the exception of LA (more on that later), every higher seed lost their first round series. New York Red Bull crashed and burned against San Jose. Columbus went down on penalties to Colorado after a regular time stalemate. And Dallas convincingly held Real Salt Lake to a draw at Rio Tinto, allowing them through on aggregate after their 2-1 win atbizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-35615286329773197502010-11-01T14:28:00.000-07:002012-03-04T20:58:09.672-08:00Seattle Sounders 0:1 Los Angeles GalaxySo, LA Galaxy went to Seattle, into one of the best (and, for LA, most hostile) atmospheres in the history of MLS playoffs, and came away with a one goal victory. Despite all of the pre-match hype about Seattle's pace, and midfield possession, and wing play, and how hot they were down the stretch, as I predicted, the Galaxy dictated the flow of the match and go back to Home Depot Center in the bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-86885410208651255552010-10-08T09:15:00.000-07:002012-03-04T20:58:23.280-08:00MLS PlayoffsWith only a couple of games left in the MLS season, the playoff picture is relatively clear. And a large part of that clarity is just how fucked up and unfair the MLS playoff format truly is.
The continued weakness of the Eastern Conference will lead to six of the eight playoff teams coming from the Western Conference (last season, it was five of eight). In fact, if the tables were combined (bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-58492844477213431762010-09-15T14:52:00.000-07:002010-09-15T17:20:32.642-07:00Plate o' ShrimpSometimes, you see an idea and suddenly you start seeing it everywhere. Sometimes that synchronicity is so sharp, it's kind of uncanny. While I was on vacation, I finally got around to reading a couple of books that had been sitting on my nightstand for a while. The first was a remarkable near-future science fiction novel called The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi. This wildly imaginative andbizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-40170700966302977762010-09-11T21:46:00.000-07:002010-09-15T17:21:07.929-07:00Fulham 2:1 WolvesIt's kind of an odd year for a Fulham supporter. After last season's magical run through the Europa League -- and believe me, as a Fulham fan it was truly magical -- there's an air of let-down about the team this year. The crafty old codger Roy Hodgson is off to greener pastures at Liverpool. Who could fault him. He did yeoman's work at Craven Cottage, engineering the Great Escape, getting thembizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-30512420844269544302010-07-11T21:01:00.000-07:002010-09-15T17:21:07.929-07:00Final ThoughtsWell, the World Cup is over and Spain are champions. Good. Balance is restored to the universe. The best team playing the best style managed to win.The final itself kind of sucked. Holland avoided any semblance of trying to play with Spain. Instead, they must have decided that Germany lost because they were too deferential to Spain's midfield, and therefore that the proper strategy to counter bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-25494404257640300982010-07-10T18:31:00.001-07:002010-07-11T09:59:49.968-07:00Good Reads on Eve of FinalThe New York Times has a piece on the Cruyff connection.Jonathan Wilson at The Guardian dissects the prevalence of the 4-2-3-1 formation at the World Cup, and contrasts the two examples of the formation on display in the final. Zonal Marking has their preview of the final up (well, part one of it), and it's as thoughtful and detailed as you'd expect. Full of interesting links.For a little homer bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-36694499236963985912010-07-09T18:18:00.000-07:002010-07-10T19:17:49.030-07:00The FinalWhile I am delighted that Spain and Holland are in the final, I'm personally a bit conflicted about who to support. On the one hand, for familial reasons, I'm for Spain. My wife's parents -- now naturalized US citizens -- came to the US from Spain in the early '60s. My son is a big Spain supporter. I've heard so many stories about Spanish football in the '50's from my father-in-law, and we watchbizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-65290229016691186432010-07-05T19:38:00.000-07:002010-07-09T20:11:07.460-07:00World Cup Up For Grabs?I'm very excited about the semi-finals, because I think this World Cup hangs in the balance. There's less inevitability about these four teams than any cup I can remember. Any of these teams could win it. I'd put the Germans first on current form, fitness, and national football character; the Spaniards second on talent and guile; the Dutch third on efficiency and good luck; and the Uruguayans bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-54512641507276744912010-06-28T18:54:00.000-07:002010-06-29T21:45:00.796-07:00What to Watch For in WC Quarter-FinalsI got four things very wrong in my pre-tournament predictions. First, I vastly over-estimated the quality of the old European powers outside Europe (even though I explicitly discounted for their tendency not to travel well). I guess I thought that they would ultimately suck it up and perform on the big stage. I picked 6 European teams to make the Round of 16, and in fact 6 made it. While I got bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-70267411970017399242010-06-27T09:23:00.000-07:002010-06-27T20:34:06.465-07:00Thoughts on Weekend WC MatchesUruguay 2:1 South Korea -- actually a pretty good match. Uruguay took the game over in the 8th minute with a crazy play. Forlan sent a low cross through the penalty area behind the Korean back four, who all turned around and watched as the ball drifted through. The keeper thought about coming out for the ball, but then seemed to hesitate and half-slid at it, hoping, I guess, that one of his bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-71758331511072950942010-06-23T16:17:00.000-07:002010-06-25T09:09:28.179-07:00LD's GoalI'm kind of sick of the whole "what it means for US soccer" meme. It means we are through to the final 16 of the World Cup. As group winners, over England. If that's not enough, I don't know what's going to do it. This is football at its most dramatic. A minute into extra time, we were cooked. England was finishing off Slovenia 1:0, and if the results held, we were going home and Slovenia was bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-87166076665827567012010-06-21T20:56:00.000-07:002010-06-25T09:10:07.955-07:00Tristesse"Le Meltdown" as it's being called in the press -- the French disaster at the World Cup -- has received more than its fair share of snarky coverage, but this, from around 25:30 to 29:00, is both poignant and very interesting.bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1547815519783314740.post-31042027429027141172010-06-21T14:57:00.000-07:002010-06-25T09:10:07.956-07:00Why are the big European teams struggling?As of the end of the second round of group stage matches, the five major European teams -- those that received one of FIFA's coveted #1 seeds -- are a combined 4W-4D-2L. That's England, Germany, Holland, Italy and Spain. They've taken only 16 of a possible 30 points. They have dropped points from matches against the likes of New Zealand, Algeria, and Switzerland, among others.If you add France, bizpunkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371421326927967695noreply@blogger.com3