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No recession for iPhone games

If anyone had doubts about the viability of a business that is purely focused on making videogame applications for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPod Touch, venture capitalists aren't among them. Ngmoco, known for iPhone games such as puzzle-adventure game Rolando and word game WordFu, said on Monday that it raised $10 million in a new round of financing led by Norwest Venture Partners.

Game applications are among the most popular applications on Apple's App Store, which lets users choose from thousands of software programs that developers have created for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple said last week that users have downloaded 800 million applications since last July, when the App Store opened. Out of the 25,000 apps available in the store, more than 6,700 of them are games, according to Mobclix, which analyzes iPhone application usage.

Ngmoco, founded by Neil Young, a long-time executive at game publisher Electronic Arts Inc., is bullish about the iPhone games market even though it's still nascent. That's partly because Apple is making it possible to integrate even more social-networking features to applications. Ngmoco released five games last year and plans to launch at least 15 "premium" games this year, for which it will charge between $5 and $10.

Young declined to talk specifically about the games on which the company is working, but he said one new game is an alternate-reality ghost game that takes advantage of the actual physical locations of the users.

Said Young about the new funding:"2009 is going to be a really definitive year in the growth of iPhone and iPod Touch and we wanted to double down." Young quit EA last year to start Ngmoco. Ngmoco raised $5.6 million in its first round of fund-raising last July from firms such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Maple Investments. Those two firms also participated in the latest round of financing.

Источник: Total Telecom

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