Microsoft’s Massive in-game ad business takes hits among 3,000 overall layoffs
[updated with new Microsoft comment] Microsoft announced a new round of layoffs today as it struggles to right itself after reporting tepid results last month. We’ve learned that Massive, the company’s in-game advertising business, suffered 28 percent like 75 percent layoffs.
Microsoft declined to comment yesterday on the Massive layoffs but offered a correction today, saying the layoffs were not as high as we thought.
Today’s cuts amounted to more than 3,000 jobs and are part of… Continue Reading
Wild Tangent’s chief Alex St. John talks about elevating COO, shutting game studio
Alex St. John was one of the renegades at Microsoft back in the day. He cut an imposing figure as he wandered the halls and swung a fake battle ax. He got Microsoft to launch its DirectX game development technology. Since 1998, he’s been running his game start-up Wild Tangent, but now he is formally handing the reins of chief executive to his chief operating officer, Mike Peronto.
St. John confirmed in an interview that his… Continue Reading
NeoEdge Networks launches casual game channel widgets
Major portal web sites get a lot of traffic, but sometimes the visitors don’t stay for long. Video games, on the other hand, are extremely sticky. NeoEdge Networks, a start-up whose chairman is Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, is making it easy to put the two together so that visitors can play games on the big web sites and thereby stay longer.
The Mountain View, Calif., company has a casual game ad network that has been feeding… Continue Reading