1 post tagged “new investments”
We finalized an investment this week in a company called Sofatronic (forgive them for their German-only website at the moment). They're taking a new approach to gaming which is simply labeled "Casual Gaming". Basically, this allows you to play DVD based games on your DVD player at home using the remote as the controller for the game. These are very simple games, but they allow for easy tie-in's into Gameshow based games or other reality shows, etc. I have to say I was quite skeptical when I saw this initially. Yet, after seeing it implemented, I finally "get" it. For me, the whole tie-in opportunity is what makes this most interesting in my eyes. You can pretty much connect this functionality to anything marketing related. Further, when it comes to TV Shows, you can extend your "revenue reach".
Their first game is related to the german gameshow "Wetten, Das.....?". For those of you not in the know, this is hosted by a guy named Thomas Gottschalk. Outside his sense of fashion style (take a look....no further comment necessary),
he has a huge viewership and really has an amazing amount of success with his show. He gets THE best guests on his show.....period!
The first Sofatronic game pretty much allows you to play along with the show and participate in the "challenges" just as if you were part of the show. It's cool but it's not PS3 or Nintendo as it's not suppossed to be. I think the next level for Sofatronic is education-based games for young children. The simplicity allows pretty much anyone with a DVD player (who doesn't have one nowadays?) have access to such games without needing to buy the gaming consoles. If you think about this, when it comes to kids ages 3 to 5 or so, a huge opportunity.
One way or another, there's now work for the guys at Sofatronic to do in order to grow this opportunity. I'm happy we invested in this company as the team are smart, experienced entreprenuers with successful exits behind them (i.e. Elkware....sold to Infospace).
