Koduco (YC S10) Is Bringing Old-School Fun To Multiplayer iPad Games | Hacker News Reader

Koduco (YC S10) Is Bringing Old-School Fun To Multiplayer iPad Games

techcrunch.com

91 pointspx25 comments

First of all, congratulations to Koduco, this looks great, and I mean absolutely no offense to them or YC by this post.

But... this is really getting old. It seems like EVERY SINGLE YC startup is being featured on Techcrunch. How many iPhone/iPad games companies are there? Thousands. Besides bringing some level of innovation in there, I don't see anything special about this one, besides being a YC company. Yes, the games look cool.. but in the end, it's just another company doing games.

I'm trying really hard to find another reason this got featured on Techrunch besides being a YC company, and I can't. Would they get featured on TC if they weren't funded by YC? I think that's a resounding "no". It's impossible to take TC seriously anymore.

The collaborative, physical style of gameplay seemed unique to me. I think it's an innovation in this space that is definitely worth a writeup on TC, YC-funded or not.

I don't think it is that unique, it seemed like a stretch, almost as if they were trying to prove to themselves that this was worth writing about. It is only used in a tiny portion of the game.

There's often a lot more under the surface of what goes on at a YC company. Sure it's just a few more iPad games, but the unique aspects of them were not accidental.

If you think about it being funded by YC is tech news. Techcrunch is about tech news. Now they cannot just write about the startup being funded and close it. They must tell you about their product.

Actually I am a lot happier to read about startups like Koduco (although I did not read the article), than to read about another Facebook/Twitter/Google article.

>> "If you think about it being funded by YC is tech news."

Only really if you consider them having more chance of success than all other startups. I think the juries out on that one personally.

>But... this is really getting old. It seems like EVERY SINGLE YC startup is being featured on Techcrunch.

Being a YC funded company is notable in the same way that being funded by any top tier angel or VC would be. It is the same reason why every publicly launched company invested in by Chris Sacca, Jeff Clavier, Ron Conway, Dave McClure, etc is covered on TechCrunch and other tech blogs. TC also routinely covers companies coming out of Techstars and other well known early stage investment programs.

It may seem like YC gets more coverage, but I think it is roughly proportional to the number of companies that YC funds. YC has funded something like 60 companies in 2010.

Why worry about who gets covered on TC? There are almost certainly more productive things you can do for your business. (I originally meant "than worrying" then realized this could get read as "than being covered on TC", not that I disagree with that reading.)

YC companies getting featured on TechCrunch is the only reason TechCrunch doesn't get blacklisted on news.yc like Valleywag.

We had a mixed-gender development team and tested extensively at parties. People like to pass the game around and show it off, and it's not so intense that you can't talk while playing it. And even if you don't use PongVaders as an intro, it provides a shared context which makes meeting new people easier.

"It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these games are perfect for breaking the ice when you’re meeting someone for the first time, or to flirt with the cute girl who sits next to you in history class."

Is this how people break the ice and flirt these days, or am I now entering the stages of being an old-timer (23yrs. old)?

Depends on the person, I guess. When I mentioned to the Koduco guys that this seemed like it would be a pretty fun game to flirt/play with a date, they agreed.

What was the likelihood they'd say "no, our game is no fun to flirt with/on dates?"

I imagine that "Hey, want to play PongVaders?" will be quite irresistible.

No, more like "Hey, I've got this game that's sorta like Pong, want to play?" The game requires sitting within a foot or two of each other and using teamwork to steer through the 'physical' parts.

I really don't think this idea is so far fetched, but I'm not exactly Rico Suave, either.

just think back to why you played flipcup in college...

As a female I would say unequivocally YES. I am dying to have someone ask me if I want to play PongVaders with them...

where is your garage?

never thought about using it as a tool for flirting or breaking the ice. but sounds like a perfect way for geeks to have fun!

Only slight hiccup is no one has an iPad. The chances of meeting a hot girl, who has an iPad, who is in your history class, are 0.

I think the point was, if you're a tech geek (as most TechCrunch readers are), you'll have an IPad and can invite people to play with you.

I didn't even realize YC funds game companies. I'm in debt developing my first game right now, but I'd love YC just for the name recognition, screw money!

I'm developing a game for Xbox, and the hardest hurdle is getting it onto the Arcade marketplace. The difference in revenue between Arcade and the open market is usually a factor of 10-100 (subjectively controlling for quality). The clout of having YC funding would be a huge boon for getting Microsoft to green light a game for Arcade.

It's like YC funding film producers — it's a mercurial content business, not something that can scale wildly like their typical investments.

I think they've funded at least a couple companies selling tools & platforms for game developers (analytics, ads, login/matchmaking, etc.), but I thought PG had an explicit distaste for this kind of thing. It doesn't seem like Koduco intends to be something other than a content production company…

Agreed, content production is an inherently different game, with much less explosive potential.

Still, there are some good investments to be made. Even mediocre games are pulling down 7 figures on Xbox Arcade. With the development cost of a good indie title sitting in the $10,000 range, that's a pretty solid opportunity.

I doubt I'm alone as an indie developer that would be willing to give up a share of their game for zero investment dollars, just to have the YC name behind them. There's still a cost to YC there though. The integrity of their name is important.

Check out the Pawn concept on this website. http://www.volumique.com/en/..

Koduco--maybe you could implement something like this for your Checker360 board game?

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