Video Games are Big Business

Computer games and video games are big business.  The Wall Street Journal published "Minecraft Hits Mother Lode for a Small Swedish Company" by Matthew Lynley on Monday February 4, 2013 (p.B1).  The computer game Minecraft, created by Markus Persson in 2010 when he was in his 30's, has sold 20 million copies.  His company, Mojang A.B. in Stockholm, earned $90 million on revenue of $235 million last year.  His company employs only 29 people.  That is a lot of profit from a few people.

Video games and computer games are created by programmers.  I said in an earlier post, "Without domain knowledge, programmers either learn more programming minutia, or learn new languages, or write computer games."  There are successful software game companies in the DFW metroplex.

One of the creators of the game Words With Friends is Paul Bettner, a McKinney resident, who started a company, Newtoy Inc., in McKinney with his brother Dave after working at Microsoft.  Id Software, the creator of the game Doom, is headquartered in Richardson, Texas.

If people are going to create video games, I'd rather they do it in the Dallas metroplex than in Stockholm.  The Texas Young Programmers Project can contribute to creating the pool of skilled computer programmers necessary to grow DFW into a center for game development.

The money from successful software companies can spill over into other business enterprises.  Armadillo Aerospace was started by John Carmack from Id Software.  Mark Cuban sold his software company, Broadcast.com, and invested in the Dallas Mavericks, among other things.  In 2011 the Mavs won the NBA championship.  Software entrepreneurs can be a source of synergistic economic growth to a community, so we should encourage and support software entrepreneurhip.

Robert

This post is part of the
The Texas Software Initiative  Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Texas Entrepreneurship Project

America needs more businesses to be created and nurtured to success.  Businesses are the vital organs in the body of capitalism.  There are not enough businesses in America putting people and capital to work.  The Wall Street Journal, on Tuesday July 17, 2012 (p. C3), ran this article:  "Lending Proves Both Boon and Bane for Banks," by Matthias Rieker.  The article contained this sentence:  "KeyCorp stock has lost half its value since the financial crisis, amid persistent questions about whether the company can find customers to lend to—and then turn those loans into profits." This is just one piece of evidence among many that our economy is starving for lack of business growth.

Banks are hoarding cash in part because they do not know what to do with it.  There is too much money and not enough investment opportunities.  One of the reasons collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) were created was because there are not enough business to absorb the vast amounts of capital available for investment.  (See Global Surplus Capital.)  We need more businesses.  People who start businesses are called entrepreneurs.  We need to educate and empower people  to start and grow businesses.  The initiative to educate and empower people in Texas to start and grow businesses I call the Texas Entrepreneurship Project. 

The Texas Software Initiative is intended to support business growth through software companies and products.

It is not enough for  people to start small business.  If we have a ten percent increase in independent contractors doing plumbing or air conditioning then we do not have the sizable investment opportunities that are sought by the truly wealthy who have billions of dollars to invest.  We need to understand what it takes to grow a business to billions of dollars of revenue, then we need to spread that information and develop the economic and financial infrastructure necessary to support large business growth. 

The Texas Entrepreneurship Project to educate and empower people to start and grow businesses begins with understanding and education.

Robert

I have in the past proposed a New Business Project:
The Cause of the Crash of 2008 and the New Business Project  Sunday, August 5, 2012
But I believe people interested in this topic are looking for the word "entrepreneurship," so I am re-naming this project.
The August 5 post includes links to related blog posts.

Fed Policy is a Drag on the Economy

The Texas Ascendant Economics Project is a plan to develop the best thinking about economics.  We must understand the affect of the Federal Reserve upon the American and the Texas economies.  An op-ed essay in the January 29, 2013 Wall Street Journal is important to read and understand.  The article is "Fed Policy is a Drag on the Economy" by John B. Taylor.  Dr. Taylor is an economics professor at Stanford.  Here is his web page (http://www.johnbtaylor.com/) and his blog (http://johnbtaylorsblog.blogspot.com/).

This post is part of the Texas Ascendant Economics Project.

Robert