Gaming News

Thursday, January 26, 2012

SparkBridge swims out of Vancouver Aquarium, FableVision Studios
SparkBridge Interactive has launched today, tapping former Blue Fang Games COO Scott Triola as its new CEO, and aiming to bring a gamification platform to mobile apps.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

MIT to build educational video games with $3M grant
The MIT Education Arcade plans to create a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) as a tool to help high school students learn math and biology. The game is funded by a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Brass Monkey swings biz model around, closes $750K seed round
Having shifted its business model, gameplay software developer Brass Monkey Inc. has closed on a $750,000 seed funding round, according to CEO Chris Allen.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Blog: Dumped gaming marketer Christoforo: I don't actually know Mayor Menino
Boston Business Journal's Kyle Alspach: The web highlight of the week: An e-mail spat over a video game controller that went viral on the web, and sucked Boston into the middle of it.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Zynga's $1B IPO likely felt in Boston
Social gaming titan and Farmville maker Zynga priced its initial public offering at $10 per share, giving the company – which has a Zynga Boston location – a $1 billion IPO.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Ready Player One: Sharma named first MassDiGI director
The recently formed Massachusetts Digital Games Institute has officially named local technology veteran Monty Sharma as its first managing director.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Raytheon BBN lands $10.5M game development deal
Raytheon BBN Technologies' Sirius program, which focuses on game development to create better training systems, has won a $10.5 million multi-year Air Force Laboratory contract from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Turbine game forums 'compromised,' fixed
Turbine Inc. took down its player forums for its game Lord of the Rings Online over the weekend, due to a security issue that the company said in a FAQ could have led to hackers gaining access to a player’s forum account.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

MocoSpace buys Cambridge's Geocade
Mobile social portal MocoSpace has purchased Cambridge location-based social games platform maker Geocade for an undisclosed amount, according to a release.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

MassDiGI unlocks $500K achievement from Commerce Dept.
The new promotional arm for the Massachusetts videogame industry, the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute, has landed a $500,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce to help its effort to boost the development of a videogame cluster in the Bay State.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

New games institute launches with $30K from MTC
The new Massachusetts Digital Games Institute continues to draw support from the state, today announcing a $30,000 award from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to help boost the cooperation between the games industry and academia in the Bay State.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

MocoSpace boosts HTML5 game fund to $2M
Boston’s MocoSpace has added $1 million into a fund to be used to boost development of social mobile games based on HTML5, according to a release.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

First game from 38 Studios gets Feb. release date
38 Studios LLC, the videogame company founded by Red Sox ace Curt Schilling, has announced that its first game, "Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning", will be released on Feb. 7, 2012.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Nanigans gets $3M, and EA as ad partner
Boston startup Nanigans Inc., barely a year old, has been chosen by Electronic Arts Inc. to supply its advertising platform for EA social games on Facebook, according to a release.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Hasbro plans $24M, 284-employee expansion in Providence
Hasbro Inc. plans to expand in Providence, adding 284 employees to a new site at 15 LaSalle Square, and invest up to $24 million in the operation over three years. The state of Rhode Island has awarded Hasbro $1.6 million in tax breaks as part of the expansion.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Report: Blue Fang laying off development staff
According to an online report, Blue Fang Games of Waltham is letting go all of its development staff. The website Gamasutra cited “a source close to the studio” who told the site the Blue Fang is laying off “the entirety of its development staff.”
Zynga decides to play the IPO game
Zynga Inc., which has a Zynga Boston outpost following its August 2010 acquisition of Conduit Labs, has filed with the SEC for an initial public offering, tentatively set at $1 billion.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Game developer PlayLore brings in $3M
PlayLore Inc., an outsourced game developer based in Westport, Conn., and Recife, Brazil, and operating under the name PlayLore Gameworks, has reported a $3 million equity funding, according to federal documents.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Quick Hit assets sold to Majesco Entertainment
Quick Hit Inc., the Foxborough online football game company, agreed to sell the majority of its assets to game publisher Majesco Entertainment Co. of Edison, N.J., for $836,000. Not included in the deal are the rights to Quick Hit’s only game, Quick Hit Football, which CEO Jeff Anderson said is currently under discussion.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Report has game company Play140 picking up new funding
Social games startup Play140 has had the backers in its seed funding identified. The Cambridge company took in funding from Ojas Venture Partners of Bangalore, India, China’s SOS Ventures and angel Ty Danco, according to an online report, that has been confirmed by company founder Shawn Broderick.