Cha-Ching! Virtual Worlds Rake in $161M in Q2
ADOTAS – Virtual worlds saw a lot of real money from venture capital firms in the second quarter of this year. Venture firms and media companies sank more than $161 million into 16 companies that work in the online gaming and virtual world universe; so far this year $345 million has been invested, according to Virtual Worlds Management.
Most of the dough went to Realtime Worlds, which received $50 million from Maverick Capital and other venture firms. An online game set in a city is set to be released this year (the company’s chief Dave Jones was behind Grand Theft Auto).
Turbine Inc. raked it in too. ($40 million from Time Warner and others). Turbine rolled out Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons Online and more with the influx.
Social networking software developer Nurien and casual gamer PlayFish were also bankrolled in the first half of this year.
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