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12 hours and 54 minutes ago
Developer: Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Players: 1-18 (2-4 co-op)
Genre: FPS
Price: $59.99
Reviewed On: Xbox 360
ESRB:
__________________________
Overview: It seems like every year, a new call of duty game comes out during the
holiday seasons, how does this one stand out from the rest? I really have no idea because I have
never played a COD game before, so this year I am jumping in and heading out to see what all the
fuzz is about in this bullet packed FPS. (CAUTION: DOES NOT CONTAIN ACTUAL BULLETS!)
Gameplay: There is no denying that WWII games have been done quite too many times,
and for gamers that have been keeping up with the franchise this may be a good or bad thing, this
is still Call Of Duty in every single way so if you didn't like the old ones, there is a slim
chance that you will enjoy this one.
What REALLY sets this one aside from the rest is an extra game option you unlock after beating the
game where you are stuck inside a house and an unlimited number of waves of nazy zombies, they can
come into your house but they have to break walls and wood that covers windows first. You can
re-build any barrier, buy new weapons, and expand your ground, tho when you expand your ground, you
also increase the number of gaps that may lay in your home for zombies to come in. The zombies get
faster and stronger as the waves go by making your initial guns useless against them, guns that use
to kill them with one shot will later take 2, 3, 5, 7 shots to kill them after a few waves go by,
tho a head shot will always blow them up, it is alot harder to do so when they are running at you
by the bunch. this is a great experience specially with friends, but I do wish they had expanded a
bit more in it, there is only one type of zombie and the house is pretty small, also, it is great
to have a small group so that team work becomes easier to achieve, but having about ten guys in a
house kicking zombie butt would have been cool too.
The flame thrower is a blast to use on enemies.
Now on to multiplayer, this game supports up to 18 players which is great, you have to constantly
watch your back or else you will die easily, I learned this thanks to an awesome death cam that
puts you in the eyes of your opponent seconds before your defeat, and sure enough, most of my
deaths were caused by enemies whom i did not see mys self, if you learn from the mistakes that the
death cam shows you, you will quickly be able to dominate the grounds. The ranking system on Call
Of Duty: World At War is great, you level up constantly and get great rewards, from new weapons to
perks that you can add to your character to give him more health or make his bullets inflict more
damage, after you reach level four you can create your own class to fully be able to customize your
character to fit your gameplay style.
The AI can be very dumb at times which takes away from the experience, sometimes I feel like i am
just target practicing due to the fact that they just aim at me and wait for me to shoot at them,
sometimes you can even stay behind them or follow them for long periods of times before they notice
you which is odd because this could have possibly been done on purpose to encourage you to be
stealthy in certain areas, but if they did, they need to fix it because even I would notice people
when they are running behind me or starring at me with a gun few feet away from me.
Your team mates are no better, you will often see them shooting at walls just because there is an
enemy at the other side of it, I once saw a squad member run sideways across an opened door and
once the opening was over he started to shoot at the wall, it was quite a late reaction.
Any time you are at your feet (not on a tank or something) your gameplay will most likely consist
of the following: walk around, get ambushed, hide behind something, come out to shoot at your
enemies and get back in cover once you have taken enough hits, and then go to the next area, this
is all good at first but after a while you start to notice this pattern.
The loading times are covered up by a mix between real live footage, and CG content, it always
loads up before the introduction is finished and you are free to skip it afterward tho some of them
are quite interesting and you may want to watch each at least once.
There is an icon on the bottom left of the screen where the map is located that tells you where to
go, this way, you will never get lost which is a great touch, tho not completely necessary due to
the fact that this game is very linear, tho this simply further escorts you to your next
checkpoint.
Most of the achievements have to be done alone, which is a shame because normally you have the
option gain achievements ether solo or with a friend, and who doesn't love to grab a friend and go
achievement hunting right?
Aside from the regular gameplay where you run around and shoot there are only two missions that
have you doing something differently and they are both short, one of them takes you inside a flame
throwing tank that can self-regenerate somehow and while its nice to have a completely new mission
and all, this particular one was not all that fun, and then there is the other mission that puts
you inside a plane where you will have to shoot down boats and plains, here you can only control
and fire turrets and the game will ask you to change position every now and then to shoot at
objects on the other side of the plain, this one is actually fun.
Can YOU guess what will happen next?
Graphics: Character models are well made and often go out of their regular
behavior to do a scripted one such as opening a gate or killing captured enemies which is rare in
games, there is a strange mixture between high res textures and low res ones, the grass for example
has an incredibly high resolution texture for what it is, I crouched and zoomed in on it and it was
still relatively smooth, yet when I was hiding behind what seemed to be a desk, the texture was low
enough for me to see each pixel without having to zoom in on it, I had so walk away from it to
figure out what it was.
Another thing that HAS to be pointed out is that the level of detail in the environments is
amazing, the jungle is filled with numerous species of plants, and the buildings are filled with
chairs, dirty walls, garbage, ect, not to mention that your battlefield is always changing, this
keeps the game from getting repetitive too early. The fire effects are also excellent and the
reactions from the flames are normally good too, except for the fact that I think there is only one
animation for being burned, I once burned two enemies at once and they were mirroring each others
movements perfectly.
Sound: The sound in this game is top notch, you hear bullets coming from every
direction and hitting the ground or walls near you, solders screaming for their lives and dying,
voice overs are good too but the lip sync can use alot of work, while you are in cover you can
count on the sound of bullets hitting your cover to see when the enemy is reloading so you can pop
out and lay a nice grenade on their feet to keep them warm. Overall the sound in this game is so
great it improves the overall experience by a long shot.
Replay Value: The main story can be fully played in co-op and the online mode is
great too, that is not even counting the great zombie survival extra that you unlock once you beat
the game, tho you don't need to beat the game in order to play it if you have been invited by
someone to play it, the regular multiplayer modes also have missions that you can choose to
completely ignore or you can face them, this missions are small things like stab someone a certain
amount of times and things like that, but one should never look at the teeth of a given horse, if
it is there as an extra and is not mandatory then no reason to complain but to appreciate.
Conclusion: The game will last you about 6-10 hours depending on the difficulty
level and your personal skill level, it takes 6.5 GB to install this game and it only shaved off
about one or two seconds of loading time on my end, so unless you REALLY want to play Call Of Duty:
World At War with a silent xbox you are gonna want to play this one from the disk, and its not like
you will hear the xbox with all the sounds from guns, grenades, tanks, and people screaming.
This is why stabbing a knife with your stomach is a bad idea.
________________________________________
Overall Score: 
.:Great Game!:. |
YouTube :: Recently Added Videos -
12 hours and 56 minutes ago
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madness7968 ponman19 Added: November 22, 2008
|
FileMP3.org -
21 hours and 42 minutes ago
Category: br / Size: 13.08 MBbr / Status: 4 seeders and no leecherbr / Speed: no trafficbr / Added:
2008-11-22 16:25:11
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PlayStation 3 -
22 hours and 3 minutes ago
p style="text-align: center;"a
href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-b_qjgenth.jpg?627400"
rel="lightbox[article126579]" title="Resident 20Evil 205 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp
3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-b.jpg
3F627400 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img alt="Resident Evil 5 - Image 1"
title="Resident Evil 5 - Image 1"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-b_qjgenth.jpg?627400"
align=""/abr/pbrIt's not as big a batch of screens a title="Resident Evil 5 screens: we got
chainsaw-wielding Sackboys"
href="http://www.qj.net/Resident-Evil-5-screens-we-got-chainsaw-wielding-Sackboys/pg/49/aid/126199"as
last time/a, but hey, that's not stopping us from flying off the handle for span style="font-style:
italic;"Resident Evil 5/span again - and just as some of you would have it, this batch of screens
are indeed going batty. a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/zombie/5394" id="tag" title="an undead
person"Zombie/a-batty, that is.brbrCheck out that huge mutated bat that's got whatsherface trapped.
Reminds me of Saturday nights. Meanwhile, we see new screens of the same scenarios from before: a
href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/chris-redfield/15805" id="tag" title="Resident Evil protagonist"Chris
Redfield/a sniping stuff from a balcony, more motorcycle-chasing, and another cameo of the Los
Plagas Sackboy wielding a chainsaw.brbrp style="text-align: center;"a
href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-a_qjgenth.jpg?137552"
rel="lightbox[article126579]" title="Resident 20Evil 205 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp
3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-a.jpg
3F137552 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img alt="Resident Evil 5 - Image 1"
title="Resident Evil 5 - Image 1"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-a_qjgenth.jpg?137552"
align=""/anbsp;a
href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-c_qjgenth.jpg?354757"
rel="lightbox[article126579]" title="Resident 20Evil 205 20- 20Image 202 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp
3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-c.jpg
3F354757 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img alt="Resident Evil 5 - Image 2"
title="Resident Evil 5 - Image 2"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-c_qjgenth.jpg?354757"
align=""/anbsp;a
href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-d_qjgenth.jpg?139720"
rel="lightbox[article126579]" title="Resident 20Evil 205 20- 20Image 203 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp
3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-d.jpg
3F139720 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img alt="Resident Evil 5 - Image 3"
title="Resident Evil 5 - Image 3"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-d_qjgenth.jpg?139720"
align=""/abra
href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-e_qjgenth.jpg?053467"
rel="lightbox[article126579]" title="Resident 20Evil 205 20- 20Image 204 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp
3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-e.jpg
3F053467 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img alt="Resident Evil 5 - Image 4"
title="Resident Evil 5 - Image 4"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-e_qjgenth.jpg?053467"
align=""/anbsp;a
href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-f_qjgenth.jpg?483244"
rel="lightbox[article126579]" title="Resident 20Evil 205 20- 20Image 205 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp
3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-f.jpg
3F483244 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img alt="Resident Evil 5 - Image 5"
title="Resident Evil 5 - Image 5"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126579/resident-evil-5-f_qjgenth.jpg?483244"
align=""/abr/pbra href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/capcom/107" id="tag" title="Game
Developer"Capcom/a's span style="font-style: italic;"Resident Evil 5/span for the a title="PS3 -
Resident Evil 5" href="http://ps3.qj.net/Resident-Evil-5/cid/242"PS3/a and a title="Xbox 360 -
Resident Evil 5" href="http://xbox360.qj.net/Resident-Evil-5/cid/531"Xbox 360/a is to be released
on March 13.brbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"Related
articles:/spanbrullia style="font-style: italic;" title="Resident Evil 5 screens: we got
chainsaw-wielding Sackboys"
href="http://www.qj.net/Resident-Evil-5-screens-we-got-chainsaw-wielding-Sackboys/pg/49/aid/126199"Resident
Evil 5 screens: we got chainsaw-wielding Sackboys/abr/li/ulbrbrimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/ps3/~4/IARZ7CuwaX0" height="1" width="1"/
|
Wii -
1 days and 3 hours ago
p style="text-align: center;"img style="margin: 0px;"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module2/78837/deadrisingdance_qjgenth.jpg"/pbrEarlier this
year, a href="http://wii.qj.net/tags/capcom/107" id="tag" title="Game Developer"Capcom/a was sued
by the MKR Group, the firm handling a href="http://wii.qj.net/tags/george-a--romero/9665" id="tag"
title="film director"George A. Romero/a's a href="http://wii.qj.net/tags/zombie/5394" id="tag"
title="an undead person"zombie/a films. The lawsuit accused a style="font-style: italic;"
title="Xbox 360 - Dead Rising" href="http://xbox360.qj.net/Dead-Rising/cid/544"Dead Rising/a of
being too similar to Dawn of the Dead. Just some of the similarities that MKR presented to the
court:brolliBoth works are set in a bi-level shopping mall./liliThe mall has a gun shop, in which
action takes place./liliThe mall is located in a rural area with the National Guard patrolling its
environs./liliBoth works are set in motion by a helicopter that takes the lead characters to a mall
besieged by zombies./liliMany of the zombies wear plaid shirts./liliBoth works feature a subtext
critique of sensationalistic journalism through their use of tough, cynical journalists with short
brown hair and leather jackets as a lead male character./liliBoth works feature the creative use of
items such as propane tanks, chainsaws, and vehicles to kill zombies./liliBoth works are a parody
of rampant consumerism./liliBoth works use music in the mall for comedic effect./lilispan
style="font-style: italic;"Dead Rising/span's use of the word "hell" references the tagline for
Dawn of the Dead's release ("When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the
earth.")./li/olYes, I know. Some of these "similarities" are a bit too tenuous to draw any
irrefutable evidence from, and as far as the judge is concerned, the lawsuit is now ruled to be
dismissed. It actually brings to mind Sony's recent a title="Sony slammed for 'copying' Sackboy
costumes, explained as coincidence"
href="http://www.qj.net/Sony-slammed-for-copying-Sackboy-costumes-explained-as-coincidence/pg/49/aid/126368"statement
about similarities and coincidences in span style="font-style: italic;"LittleBigPlanet/span
content/a, but moving on...brbrSpecifically, here's Judge Richard Seeborg's verdict:brbrp
style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"[That MKR] has not identified any similarity
between span style="font-style: italic;"Dead Rising/span and any protected element of Dawn of the
Dead. Rather, the few similarities MKR has alleged are driven by the wholly unprotectable concept
of humans battling zombies in a mall during a zombie outbreak./pbrThe key word here is "protected".
And in short: the concept or plot device of zombies in a mall is span style="font-style:
italic;"not protected/span by copyright. In fact, as the Judge says, it's span style="font-style:
italic;"wholly unprotectable/span - no matter who you are or what you do. So, MKR can't sue Capcom
for something that isn't protected.brbrMeanwhile, Capcom may have won the case, but at a rather
sour note, the Judge also gave a stinging remark upon discussion of one of the similarities MKR
accused of Capcom (i.e. Both works are a parody of rampant consumerism). According to the
Judge:brbrp/pp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"To the extent that span
style="font-style: italic;"Dead Rising/span may be deemed to posses a theme, it is confined to the
killing of zombies in the process of attempting to unlock the cause of the zombie infestation. The
social commentary MKR draws from Dawn of the Dead, in other words, appears totally absent from the
combat focus found in span style="font-style: italic;"Dead Rising/span./pp/pbrOh. Judges are giving
game reviews now?brbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"Related
articles:/spanbrulli style="font-style: italic;"a title="MKR Group finally sues Capcom over Dead
Rising"
href="http://xbox360.qj.net/MKR-Group-finally-sues-Capcom-over-Dead-Rising/pg/49/aid/114615"MKR
Group finally sues Capcom over Dead Rising/a/lili style="font-style: italic;"a title="MKR Group and
Capcom in legal brouhaha over Dead Rising"
href="http://xbox360.qj.net/MKR-Group-and-Capcom-in-legal-brouhaha-over-Dead-Rising/pg/49/aid/113693"MKR
Group and Capcom in legal brouhaha over Dead Rising/a/lilia style="font-style: italic;" title="Sony
slammed for 'copying' Sackboy costumes, explained as coincidence"
href="http://www.qj.net/Sony-slammed-for-copying-Sackboy-costumes-explained-as-coincidence/pg/49/aid/126368"Sony
slammed for 'copying' Sackboy costumes, explained as coincidence/abr/li/ulbrbrdiv class="feedflare"
a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?a=OI9h9wOW"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?a=5cscgJpA"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?d=43" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?a=tijEVXc3"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/wii/~4/4I2sNGol958" height="1" width="1"/
|
Planète BD -
1 days and 8 hours ago
Le joyau de la sorcière est le centre d'intérêt de nombreuses personnes mais
une seule pourra en être la propriétaire. Un tome gore et sexy peu original, pour
amateurs du genre.br /Note : 2/6
|
GigaOM -
1 days and 9 hours ago
In these perilous economic times, the layoff memos often follow a familiar refrain: “We
have cut costs by 20 percent. That gives us an additional year’s runway. Or two.” But
while yes, companies can cut costs and prolong their survival, when it comes to startups, just
because they can doesn’t mean they should.
I’m speaking here of venture-backed startups, which represent a small minority of
companies. The sole purpose of most companies is to create a steady income stream for their
owners and operators — in other words, survival. Venture-backed startups, on the other
hand, are created with the sole purpose of a successful exit.
Why growth is crucial
Whether that exit comes in the form of an acquisition or an IPO, in the meantime, the lifeblood
of any startup is growth, be it in terms of customers, usage, revenues or profits. Under most
economic conditions, an IPO is impossible without revenue and profit growth, and we are unlikely
to see that change any time soon. From an acquisition point of view, stagnant companies are
valued at low multiples of revenue, say 1x-2x. And while popular meme suggests that flat is the
new growth — given the downturn in the economy, the argument goes, even keeping revenues
flat is sufficient — this argument does not apply to startups.
By definition, startups are supposed to be attacking nascent market opportunities and unsaturated
markets, and as such should be able to grow even during a downturn. If a startup cannot find
growth in this environment, it’s a clear message that the market opportunity might be
better served by an established company. Of course, growth in profits or revenues are far better
than just growth in usage, but even growth in usage is better than stagnation on all three
fronts. There is at least the possibility that a company with strong usage growth might one day
be attractive to an acquirer with a good monetization engine.
It’s no fun to work at a startup that isn’t growing. Stagnation leads to low morale,
with people sitting around waiting for the axe to fall. Rather than let the company become a
zombie, management would be doing their investors and employees a favor by pulling the plug and
returning the remaining capital to investors.
Why VCs often don’t put companies out of their misery
Founders and executives have a lot of emotional capital invested in their companies, so when it
comes to making the ultimate decision, their reluctance is understandable. What’s
surprising is how often VCs let companies turn into zombies. The reason for this is a subtle
misalignment of interests between VCs and their investors. As long as a startup still appears to
be, on some level, alive, VCs can carry the company on their books at the valuation set by the
last round of financing. Once they pull the plug, the fund will receive pennies on the dollar, a
loss that has to be recorded on the books and doesn’t look good when the firm goes to raise
their next fund. Every VC portfolio, therefore, has its fair share of zombies.
Another contributing factor is excessive preference overhangs. Investors receive preferred stock
with the right to get back their invested capital ahead of common shareholders in an exit; in
some cases they have the right to receive a multiple of their invested capital ahead of common
shareholders. The total amount that investors need to receive before common shareholders can
participate in an exit is called the “preference overhang.”
If a company has raised so much capital that any realistic acquisition will be below the
overhang, then common shareholders stand to receive nothing from the sale — and company
management has no incentive to look for such an exit. In such cases, it’s important for the
VCs and management to agree to restructure the preference overhangs to make such exits attractive
to management. Otherwise the company is destined to become a zombie.
Every startup founder and employee has to consider three possible outcomes: success, failure and
zombiehood. Success is much better than failure, but quick failure beats wasting years of your
life on a zombie. If you are a company founder, and you are considering layoffs to extend the
runway (perhaps on the advice of your venture investor), you should look in the mirror and ask
yourself whether you are cutting away your growth opportunity and just choosing a lingering death
over a quick one.
Anand Rajaraman is a co-founder of Kosmix and Founding Partner of Cambrian Ventures.
Disclosure: He is also an investor in Giga Omni Media, parent company of
GigaOM.
      |
GigaOM -
1 days and 9 hours ago
In these perilous economic times, the layoff memos often follow a familiar refrain: “We
have cut costs by 20 percent. That gives us an additional year’s runway. Or two.” But
while yes, companies can cut costs and prolong their survival, when it comes to startups, just
because they can doesn’t mean they should.
I’m speaking here of venture-backed startups, which represent a small minority of
companies. The sole purpose of most companies is to create a steady income stream for their
owners and operators — in other words, survival. Venture-backed startups, on the other
hand, are created with the sole purpose of a successful exit.
Why growth is crucial
Whether that exit comes in the form of an acquisition or an IPO, in the meantime, the lifeblood
of any startup is growth, be it in terms of customers, usage, revenues or profits. Under most
economic conditions, an IPO is impossible without revenue and profit growth, and we are unlikely
to see that change any time soon. From an acquisition point of view, stagnant companies are
valued at low multiples of revenue, say 1x-2x. And while popular meme suggests that flat is the
new growth — given the downturn in the economy, the argument goes, even keeping revenues
flat is sufficient — this argument does not apply to startups.
By definition, startups are supposed to be attacking nascent market opportunities and unsaturated
markets, and as such should be able to grow even during a downturn. If a startup cannot find
growth in this environment, it’s a clear message that the market opportunity might be
better served by an established company. Of course, growth in profits or revenues are far better
than just growth in usage, but even growth in usage is better than stagnation on all three
fronts. There is at least the possibility that a company with strong usage growth might one day
be attractive to an acquirer with a good monetization engine.
It’s no fun to work at a startup that isn’t growing. Stagnation leads to low morale,
with people sitting around waiting for the axe to fall. Rather than let the company become a
zombie, management would be doing their investors and employees a favor by pulling the plug and
returning the remaining capital to investors.
Why VCs often don’t put companies out of their misery
Founders and executives have a lot of emotional capital invested in their companies, so when it
comes to making the ultimate decision, their reluctance is understandable. What’s
surprising is how often VCs let companies turn into zombies. The reason for this is a subtle
misalignment of interests between VCs and their investors. As long as a startup still appears to
be, on some level, alive, VCs can carry the company on their books at the valuation set by the
last round of financing. Once they pull the plug, the fund will receive pennies on the dollar, a
loss that has to be recorded on the books and doesn’t look good when the firm goes to raise
their next fund. Every VC portfolio, therefore, has its fair share of zombies.
Another contributing factor is excessive preference overhangs. Investors receive preferred stock
with the right to get back their invested capital ahead of common shareholders in an exit; in
some cases they have the right to receive a multiple of their invested capital ahead of common
shareholders. The total amount that investors need to receive before common shareholders can
participate in an exit is called the “preference overhang.”
If a company has raised so much capital that any realistic acquisition will be below the
overhang, then common shareholders stand to receive nothing from the sale — and company
management has no incentive to look for such an exit. In such cases, it’s important for the
VCs and management to agree to restructure the preference overhangs to make such exits attractive
to management. Otherwise the company is destined to become a zombie.
Every startup founder and employee has to consider three possible outcomes: success, failure and
zombiehood. Success is much better than failure, but quick failure beats wasting years of your
life on a zombie. If you are a company founder, and you are considering layoffs to extend the
runway (perhaps on the advice of your venture investor), you should look in the mirror and ask
yourself whether you are cutting away your growth opportunity and just choosing a lingering death
over a quick one.
Anand Rajaraman is a co-founder of Kosmix and Founding Partner of Cambrian Ventures.
Disclosure: He is also an investor in Giga Omni Media, parent company of
GigaOM.
|
BLABBERMOUTH.NET Latest News -
1 days and 11 hours ago
WHITE ZOMBIE's 4-CD/1-DVD box set, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, will release its long-awaited release
on November 25 via (Geffen/UMe).
|
Joystiq -
1 days and 12 hours ago
pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/meta-about-joystiq/" rel="tag"Meta (about
Joystiq)/a/pdiv align="center"img width="490" vspace="4" hspace="0" height="264" border="0"
align="top" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/11/rossmissing.jpg" /br
//div Wow, we're all pretty much playing (or wishing we could play) emLeft 4 Dead/em this weekend.
We knew it was going to be good, but the Smoker's tongue-grip it has on us is a little strong. If
you're looking for some comrades in the zombie slaughtering/surviving festivities, be sure to check
out a
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/19/joystiqs-official-left-4-dead-survivors-uber-list/"Joystiq's
official Left 4 Dead survivors uuml;ber-list/a. br / ul lia
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/05/meet-the-team-alexander-sliwinski/"strongAlexander
Sliwinski/strong/a: Playing emLeft 4 Dead/em with teammates who hopefully know not to pull the
shotgun trigger with the barrel facing me. Really want to finally beat the Mercy Hospital rooftop
on Advanced. Might do some Horde or insane campaign co-op in emGears 2/em. Perhaps a nice trip to
Northrend for relaxation./li listrongChristopher Grant: /strongI'm traveling (with my Xbox!) but
since every hotel I manage to stay at has a television dating back to the Carter administration, I
haven't cracked open this copy of emLeft 4 Dead/em that I snagged from a random GameCrazy in Texas.
br //li listronga href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/03/meet-the-team-griffin-mcelroy/"Griffin
McElroy/a/strong: I'll probably be tackling the last two campaigns onem Left 4 Dead/em, making
futile efforts to sneak by witches as my fellow survivors either try to shoot them in the head or
set them on fire./li listronga
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/17/meet-the-team-kevin-kelly/"Kevin Kelly/a/strong: I'm
heading out of town for Thanksgiving, so it'll be a gaming free week... if not for the fact that I
finally decided to take the plunge into the emWorld of Warcraft/em. I've installed the new WoW
Battlechest, and Wrath of the Lich King, and I'm starting a character from zero! Whee ha! Also,
I'll be board gaming it up this weekend at the a
href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/bggcon.php"Board Game Geek Convention in Dallas/a, hopefully
playing some Power Grid or Agricola./li listronga
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/10/meet-the-team-james-ransom-wiley/"James
Ransom-Wiley/a/strong: Oh ... Hi Mom! I almost forgot you were visiting this weekend ... What's
that? You'd like to go to the art museum? Sure, that sounds fun!/li lia
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/20/meet-the-team-jason-dobson/"strongJason
Dobson/strong/astrong: /strongCurrently driving over zombies in the road on his way back to
Oklahoma./li listronga
href="http://%20http//www.joystiq.com/2008/05/08/meet-the-team-justin-mcelroy/"Justin
McElroy/a/strong: I'm going to play some emLeft 4 Dead/em if I get the chance to play, which I
won't./li listronga href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/22/meet-the-team-ludwig-kietzmann/"Ludwig
Kietzmann/a/strong: When I'm not busy making the undead deader in emLeft 4 Dead/em, I'll be
refining my time trials in emMirror's Edge/em. I mean, I'm pretty satisfied with them already, but
I do enjoy making James work even harder to catch up. What a slowpoke!br //li listronga
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/27/meet-the-team-randy-nelson/"Randy Nelson/a/strong: I too
will be attempting for the umpteenth time to escape from Mercy Hospital's rooftop in emLeft 4
Dead/em. Perhaps with my tactics and Alexander's combined we can finally pull it off on Advanced.
When I'm not killing zombies, I'll be playing emPrince of Persia/em. Wait - I will. Oh yes, I
will.br //li lia href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/13/meet-the-team-ross-miller/"strongRoss
Miller/strong/a: Waiting in some utility room for us to let him out./li /ulp
style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/21/wrup-meets-the-zombie-apocalypse/"WRUP meets the zombie
apocalypse/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.joystiq.com"Joystiq/a on Fri, 21 Nov 2008
18:00:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of
feeds/a./pp style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin:
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rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a
href="http://www.joystiq.com/forward/1379910/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email
this/anbsp;|nbsp;a
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reader comments on this entry"Comments/a/p pa
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Wired Top Stories -
1 days and 14 hours ago
It's you and your buddies against a massive onslaught of the undead. Which of your comrades in arms
will you turn your back on, coward?br style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color:
maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:923e238165f2682a372c352cc5947d8c:52ZNJzfZ2L8vfNY10rb5dmR9GDI5XO84X2UxtttrfwWcHYsHa5BzsjRNNybWXGEkOl9Lb92OnGFaeg%3D%3D'img
border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook'
src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:f1309e986d309177e1f86f3a4853d98e:ihZVp7TeChAAGSoBOR%2FEWM8t18iFc7Z%2FsXgLiKZGw1hJAMJsAz3mCsRnN4KVTcQizHIL4TCtU2XY'img
border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit'
src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:4e3ab329c2ccafbcb8abcd508cf5af1b:SlaAMkEhk%2FusfbfeacK%2FKKa9lKSAvYrFUw5JNhbMWxFktOjusH%2BDqDX1z%2FMjlZz%2BAplowLtRqTWt'img
border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a
a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;'
href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:df7e8e6fa0911117abedf3e71f4c3c54:HyZwLZ5DEqpW%2B1d8J1O0zyFPepO0Ge40Llku%2Fc3ny256%2FznulbckSOzTzg0M5%2F8aObvFwydOqJNS'img
border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google'
src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=56b0b0ba9a954af0c04caaeefcea5a04p=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=56b0b0ba9a954af0c04caaeefcea5a04p=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=56b0b0ba9a954af0c04caaeefcea5a04" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa
href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=BAjZlI"img
src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=BAjZlI" border="0"/img/a/pimg
src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/461362976" height="1" width="1"/
|
DCEmu Forums:: The Homebrew & Gaming Network :: PSP Dreamcast Nintendo DS Wii GP2X Xbox 360 GBA Gamecube PS2 Forums - Dreamcast News Forum -
1 days and 15 hours ago
via Eurogamer
SEGA has confirmed a release date - well, a release month - for Wii shooter House of the Dead:
Overkill.
The game's due out in February 2009. If you pre-order it through "selected retailers" in PAL
territories, you'll be able to claim a premium Collector's Edition.
This edition comes with an exclusive graphic novel, "Prelude to an Overkill", illustrated by Steve
Copter of UK punk band Black Mekon.
SEGA's going all out for cult cachet on this one. Check out the House of the Dead: Overkill
gamepage for some smart, Grindhouse-inspired trailers as well as our recent Hands
On.
House of the Dead: Overkill is a trashy, 1970s-set prequel to the famed series of zombie-apocalypse
lightgun games, and it's exclusive to Wii. |
DCEmu Forums:: The Homebrew & Gaming Network :: PSP Dreamcast Nintendo DS Wii GP2X Xbox 360 GBA Gamecube PS2 Forums - Dreamcast News Forum -
1 days and 18 hours ago
Newly released today
features
Co-op redefined: This new action title from Valve, creators of the Counter-Strike and Half-Life
games, promises to redefine the co-operative genre as those titles did for multiplayer and single
player action games.
A.I. technology: The advanced artificial intelligence drives both friendly and unfriendly creatures
to dynamically create intense single-player, co-op, and multiplayer experiences every time the game
is played.
Expansive environments: Battle across twenty different maps with ten distinct weapons across four
sprawling campaigns.
Online matchmaking: The matchmaking, stats, rankings, and awards system drive collaborative
play.
Designer's Commentary mode: Activate this mode for a unique "behind the scenes" look at the
development of the game.
description
Set in a modern day survival-horror universe, the co-operative gameplay of Left 4
Dead™ casts four "Survivors" in an epic struggle against hordes of
swarming zombies and terrifying "Boss Infected" mutants.
The Survivor Co-op Game Mode is played out across four sprawling campaigns, set in urban and rural
environments. The team of four Survivors may be comprised of one to four human players, allowing
for single player and multiplayer co-op games.
The next-generation A.I. technology of all non-player Survivor and zombie characters is a pool of
systems used to procedurally generate a unique experience by monitoring the players' experiences
and tailoring the pacing and difficulty of action for each game. This makes for a different
experience each time the game is played.
In the Left 4 Dead Vs. Mode, play as a Survivor or as one of four types of "Boss Infected." Each of
the "Boss Infected" possesses an exceptional mutant ability -- such as a 50-foot tongue lasso or a
giant belly full of explosive methane gas -- instead of traditional firearms.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-23dt.html |
Tous les packs -
1 days and 22 hours ago
Série : Zombie-Loan - Groupe : Revolution Fansub
|
PlayStation 3 -
1 days and 23 hours ago
I'm pretty sure a lot of you are already aware of the creative potential that a style="font-style:
italic;" href="http://ps3.qj.net/LittleBigPlanet/cid/3612"LittleBigPlanet/a can unleash. From span
style="font-style: italic;"a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/gradius/878" id="tag" title="Konami space
shooter"Gradius/a/span-themed levels to span style="font-style: italic;"Shadow of the
Colossus/span-inspired mini-games, there's a limitless amount of games you can just about simulate
with your own Sackboys to play in.brbrIf you so happen to be a developer for any of these games
which get their own user-created reincarnation in span style="font-style: italic;"LBP/span, well,
imitation is a form of flattery, they always say. As long as things are in line and need no cause
for deletion, consider yourself royally flattered.brbrTake it from a
href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/capcom/107" id="tag" title="Game Developer"Capcom/a. They seem to be
quite enthused by this span style="font-style: italic;"Street Fighter/span-inspired level. It's got
Blanka and Zangief - or in this case, Blanky and Zangy - plus a section where you can "control" Ryu
and Ken and get them to blow each other up. Teehee.brbrp style="text-align: center;"object
height="344" width="425"param name="movie"
value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tl_5vFhnT84amp;amp;hl=enamp;amp;fs=1"param name="allowFullScreen"
value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed
src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tl_5vFhnT84amp;amp;hl=enamp;amp;fs=1"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344"
width="425"/objectbr/pbrThe level was created by one PSN user, Rolento, so if you want to check out
his level, just search for him. Also you can go by the name of the stage itself, "Street Fighter
Wonky".brbrAnyone want to create a span style="font-style: italic;"Resident Evil/span stage? Hordes
of a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/zombie/5394" id="tag" title="an undead person"zombie/a-Sackboys =
win!brbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"Related
articles:/spanbrulli style="font-style: italic;"a title="LittleBigPlanet coughs up Shadow of the
Colossus level, Sackboy-style"
href="http://ps3.qj.net/LittleBigPlanet-coughs-up-Shadow-of-the-Colossus-level-Sackboy-style/pg/49/aid/124308"LittleBigPlanet
coughs up Shadow of the Colossus level, Sackboy-style/a/lili style="font-style: italic;"a
title="LittleBigPlanet: levels being deleted over copyright issues"
href="http://ps3.qj.net/LittleBigPlanet-levels-being-deleted-over-copyright-issues/pg/49/aid/126036"LittleBigPlanet:
levels being deleted over copyright issues/a/lilia style="font-style: italic;" title="Play
LittleBigGradius in LittleBigPlanet"
href="http://ps3.qj.net/Play-LittleBigGradius-in-LittleBigPlanet/pg/49/aid/125762"Play
LittleBigGradius in LittleBigPlanet/abr/li/ulbrbrimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/ps3/~4/Dhf4BFTebxg" height="1" width="1"/
| |
UniversalMusicGroup
