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12 Year Old Gets $6.5M for Gaming Company
Bayscribe writes "A Silicon Valley company co-founded by a 12-year-old has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital. PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first "publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network." Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more "rewarding," and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won."
i smell another dot com bubble bursting
From the article:
Not only is this story almost certainly a dupe, it's also over 4 months old.
Have a feeling there is a need for more science injected in education. Anyway, good luck to the 13 years old CEO, maybe he is lucky and retires by 14. And then the fun begins. :)
dupe or not - that kid has just got to be an insufferable, annoying little snot.
a bit like "doogie howser MD" only real, remember that?
The linkage in the article is incorrect. The linked article talks about a startup (Elementeo) founded by a 13 year old kid named Anshul Samar, and NOT about PlaySpan, supposedly founded by 12 year old named Arjun Mehta.
Sloppy.
Is it just me or the summary bears no relation to the article it links to. The article talks about this kid inventing a board game, not "a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items".
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I thought the kid had sold his company for $6.5m
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
The actual article is here.
Apparently the kid isn't an actual co-founder, nor the CEO. It's his father running everything, the kid is just a sensationalist marketing tool.
Really, I highly doubt these kids even know a tiny fraction about the technical aspects of what they're selling or how it's done. They'll get lots of money for sure, and also learn a whole lot along the way, but they're definitely not the brains or management behind the operation at the moment.
This one turned 13 before I got to the article.
Link and Blurb about two very different things.
I wonder if this is what my mom thought I could have been doing with my time when she kept yelling at me for wasting all my time touching myself when I was 12?
I'll have to ask her sometime.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Makes slightly more sense with the correct link..
http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/19/playspan-run-12-year-old-ceo-gets-65m-in-venture-capital/
Which is not to say that investing $6.5M in a company run by a 12yo makes much sense but stranger things have happened at sea.. or so they say.
Man, screw college grads with innovative, realistic ideas. I'm givin all my cash to this 12 year old whose mom told my firm that we stand to make millions!
Isn't this just micropayments? Seriously, this is why gaming is dying. Developers will send out a half finished game and then charge people to download the extra content (i.e. the stuff they couldn't fit in before the deadline).
Let's face it, in a couple of years you'll get a game, say, Tekken where the character only has one costume. You'll then have to download the additional 5 different costumes at $2 a go. They'll do the same with maps and you'll only be able to play online with people who have also bought that map...
Summation 2
It sounds like there's some speculation that the kid doesn't really have that much to do with the company at all. Except for being an effective way to generate press. Nobody pays much attention if some random guy gets a few million dollars for a gaming idea. But a 12-year old...that's news!
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
A comment says The story about 12 year old co-founder is a big oversell...I know because I broke the story on funding two days ago. The CEO Karl Mehta and Arjun's dad is the real guy behind it...arjun just came up with part of the idea for it, and is not really involved with the business per se. Arjun's mention on the site is a gimmick which will be rectified soon...the release doesn't mention him and for good reason. Venture beat is investigating it, turns out the it is a hoax. Father using his son to make millions.
Seriously, kid sounds like Shelly from South Park.
The chinese gold farmers do this since years, isn't there already a patent for this business method?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
We humans seem to very quickly forget the not too distant past.
Has anyone drilled down to find out more info on the kid's background?
I have done a little, and no, it's not the kid in a vacuum making these
accomplishments. He's 12 years old and smart, not a super genius born with 142
man years of VC experience. That's not built into the genetic code or injected
in the pop tarts he eats. But his support network does have this VC experience.
You could have achieved similar things as a child, if:
- You lived in Silicon Valley
- Had a support network with VC pitching experience
- Had family with connections to above said group
- Had family that planned for your achievements
I've read gushing stories of young entrepreneurs that seem outlandish or super human
in accomplishment for their age. But, when I dive down into the details, more often than not, I find cases of ready made systems that will not let the child fail.
Stories of a young furniture magnate with 2 warehouses and a booming business, only to find that his father owns 12 warehouses as is accomplished in the furniture business. The media loves portraying these kids in a light of pure achievement with no mention of their contacts, support and guiding but that is dishonest reporting.
I guess it makes for a less interesting story when you see the looming shadow of a father pulling strings for the child like a puppet behind the curtain.
The child seems happy enough with the attention though.
and in other news, someone has decided that pets.com is a good idea
Is investing in a US based company that is based around selling items in video games. To the best of my knowledge, all MMORPGs fall in to one of two categories relating to online sales of in game stuff:
1) They support it fully, and thus facilitate it themselves like, say, Linden Labs. As such there's very little market for a secondary company, the operators already take care of things and they can offer things nobody else can, like security of transactions.
2) They hate it and it is a banable offence. Blizzard would be a great example. They are always combating gold sellers in World of Warcraft. Here there's a market for a secondary company, as the primary does what they can to prevent it.
Ok but you'll notice that all the ones out there like IGE seem to be located in non-US locations (IGE is in Hong Kong). Why is that? Well because not only do companies like Blizzard hate it, they'll sue your ass over it. Even if they don't win (and there's a reasonable chance they would, given it is their service and thus their right to set terms on it) they can drag your company down with a lawsuit and injunction over it.
However, that's only a problem for companies located in the US, or other nation that Blizzard (or rather their parent Vevendi SA) has offices and with legal systems friendly to such lawsuits. So operating in China is pretty safe, you just aren't going to get anywhere legally.
Well this company is US based. Seems rather stupid. Either you are trying to market in games that will let you, but don't need your services, or you are trying to market in games that won't let you, and will probably sue you if you become a big enough problem. Gee, THAT'S a great business plan.
If this means he was selling off stuff like arms and armour in diablo, I'm looking forward to blizzard stomping this kid into the ground.
Should read: "12-year old takes credit for his father's entrepreneurship and garners headlines for his father's company, father rewards extra publicity with new ferrari which kid will subsequently wreck during driver's ed"
stuff |
Here is the link that corresponds to your summary: http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/19/playspan-run-12-year-old-ceo-gets-65m-in-venture-capital/
Hope is the currency of fools
I couldn't help but notice that Bayscribe's (the submitter) e-mail handle is VentureBeat. So I'm assuming he wrote the article that the writeup links to? If so, that needs to be more clear in the writeup. It's not enough that the e-mail address is a tell. He isn't submitting this article as a disinterested third party who finds it interesting; he most likely wants to drive traffic to his site.
Kind of explains a lot, actually.
How very Web 2.0 Bubble...
Well, there goes 5 minutes I'll never get back.
I know his father Karl Mehta. He hails from Bombay/India and is a known 'hack' in Silicon Valley devising all sorts of get-rich-quick schemes with his VC brother Miten Mehta (go google). This appears to be one of his yet-another pipedreams. His previous idea was Tradeits.com (www.tradeits.com) which didnt reach anywhere. More here: http://center.spoke.com/info/p2iETB/KarlMehta
Please don't waste a min of your time on this crap. Arjun, his son, has no clue about what's going on - his father is using him for the dramatic effect.
He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won.
So he's just one of those thousands of annoying twits who spam the MMOs with "fast, cheap gold" and other game-spoiling ventures. I'm sure he's passionate, alright... but not passionate about the games, it's the money he's after.
Man, that's really young to be so corrupt!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
They need a really good pet related mascot, say a dog with a black circle painted around his eyes...
What, a sock puppet you say, now that sounds like a really stupid idea! Ah, what the hell, let's get a Superbowl ad too while we are at it!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Such a beautiful, obviously overpriced candidate for shorting.
I bet the kid patented it when he was 4 years old! lol...
--
X's and O's for all my foes.
my kid would find a generous VC to suck money out of instead of always emptying my wallet.
Hope is the currency of fools
Something that is common on games programming websites (such as Gamedev) is someone with no industry experience, or even programming ability, wanting to make their own game - either assuming a company will pick it up, or wanting to start their own company.
They tell us how they have a great "idea" for a game. They want programmers to work for them; we ask what they will contribute, and it's "ideas". We tell them that it's like someone with no experience in car design saying they have a great idea for a car, and expecting a company to make it. Typically they want to make a complex game, and most popular of all, it's MMORPGs - so not only do you have the complexities of making a game, but also all the troubles of running a server.
Misleading articles such as this make me sad - promoting that ideas are important, and an idea is all it takes to get funding, and get into the business. No doubt this will encourage more people to post "I have great idea for a game, I wanna make a MMORPG".
I'm sure most of us had money-making ideas when we were 12. Some of us pulled it off when we were older, some of us didn't. But there's nothing special about ideas.
Just saying.
I played a free game last year called Silk Roads Online that allowed you to buy items in the game for real currency. In fact, it was the primary source of revenue (as far as I know). Heck, I think the games still going and that they are planning a new expansion according to a quick web search.
I'm hearing a lot of people saying things like the kid can't be behind this etc, and I'm just wondering why it would bother anyone so much if he was. It doesn't make you anymore or less of a failure.
Sometimes I take a break and troll slaOHSHI~
--- Do you believe in the day?
Now I get to hear from my family, "Hey you work in computers. Why aren't you making $6.5mil like this 12-year-old?"
"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - M.J. A
I wonder how long it takes before this kid starts pulling in some gold digging whores.
He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won.
What online game was this? Unless it was Second Life, that would more than likely be a violation of the game's terms of service. So, how long before thay start demanding a piece of the action?
I have heard before that models are over the hill at age 25 - but now software engineers too?
When I was 12 I programmed a lemonade store where I could sell fictional lemonade to my brothers and sister. I made about $.45 off that puppy. I think I wrote it in BASIC and it ran on a Commodore 64. Somehow, even with a modern computer, I know I wouldn't have been much more capable in present day computing to sell my lemonade stand for anything more than a dollar - and that prob would've come from my mother. Sigh.
Back to work, a little sadder that I'm 33 and all washed up.
This is soposed to be the website : http://www.playspan.com/company.html .. i think this is a good scam, How a company can be evaluated at a 6.5 milion by just speculating, i whant to know.. cause i whant to do it too :) . I think it will be bought by a major player.. and that is the general ideea.
Just making a statement here. But lame. So what if the kid's 12 yrs old. Cute? Not so much when there are dogs in the world who have inherited more. Besides, anyone in the country can make their own company, plop a bunch of money and/or credit into, and voila "I co-founded X!! look at me!!! My baby is CFO!!! OMG!" not looking for points here, just stating the obvious.
if you RTFA *referenced* by TFA, you go on to find out that the company was *founded* by a kid, but no longer run by one. Very deceptive!