Palo Alto-based startup Booyah has announced it has secured $4.5 million in early financing from noted investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and will release its first product, a "playful life companion" for iPhone, this spring. The funding is part of Kleiner's $100 million iFund, which specifically focuses on companies targeting the iPhone and iPod Touch. iPhone-exclusive publisher ngmoco, founded by former EA exec Neil Young, is also funded by the initiative. Behind Booyah ...

[Midway's story is one marked by fascinating characters, plot twists and gripping drama. Gamasutra examines how this once celebrated Mortal Kombat creator went from booming to bankrupt.] The story of Midway Games reads like a video game business soap opera: There's the celebrated Midwest game maker with a coin-op heritage; the old billionaire media mogul - a Harvard man and U.S. Army vet who made the company his plaything, only to discard it like an ...

The U.S. Trade Representative said today that it has elevated Canada to its copyright protection-focused Priority Watch List for the first time, saying the country urgently needs to reform its copyright laws. Canada joins notorious piracy hubs such as China, Russia, India, Thailand and Venezuela. There are 12 countries on the Priority Watch List. Industry trade group the Entertainment Software Association promptly issued a statement applauding the decision made by President Barack Obama's administration. "Canada's ...

Recently-formed independent game studio MunkyFun has announced its use of Trinigy's Vision Game Engine 7 for use in PC and console games -- with the statement calling attention to the existence of the developer, which has been operating fairly quietly so far. Based in downtown San Francisco, MunkyFun was founded by a team of former LucasArts staffers who most recently worked on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. CEO Nick Pavis served as LucasArts' head of ...

In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more ...

Gamasutra sister site GameCareerGuide.com has announced its latest Game Design Challenge, with the object to hypothesize what gaming would be like had Mario not been a plumber. The Gamasutra sister educational site's Game Design Challenge is an exercise in becoming a game developer, asking you to look at games in a new way -- from the perspective of a game creator, producer, marketer, businessperson, and so forth. Every few weeks, the GCG editors present you ...

Electronic Arts' upcoming Sims 3 could sell over 4 million units in 2009, says Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey -- although he expects that a demographic transition toward newer entertainment forms like Nintendo's Wii and DS might weigh on the title. Sims 2 sold an estimated 3.5 units in calendar 2004, so the analyst expects the anticipated sequel to outdo its predecessor. EA also detailed today the game's digital distribution-heavy, points-based model for further monetization, ...

In a rare postmortem, originally published in Gamasutra's sister Game Developer magazine, the creators behind acclaimed DS title The World Ends With You at Square Enix and Jupiter describe exactly what went right -- and wrong -- while making the innovative touch-screen title. The creators explain just how they avoided many of the typical plot hole pitfalls in RPG storytelling -- and creating in a group played a key role: Like all other aspects of ...

EA Sports boss Peter Moore frequently discusses the migration of gaming to the online and digitally distributed environment -- and at a recent UK press event, he says "we're at [a] 65 per cent adoption rate online." Moore expects gaming to go digital as gradually and as thoroughly as music has -- even though he sees present barriers to adoption in the console with the largest userbase. "It's lagging a little bit because the Wii ...

Social game developer Zynga, which makes games for outlets ranging from Facebook to the iPhone, has hired on two new executives -- one to lead development of games on the iPhone, and the other to head up a new internal studio. Zynga said today that it has hired on Steven Lurie as general manager of Zynga's mobile game group. Lurie will lead Zynga deeper into the burgeoning iPhone gaming market and will oversee new digital ...