San Francisco based WeGame, a “YouTube for gamers” (although it is much more than that) seems to be off to a solid start. Since launching last month, founder Jared Kim says 7,000 videos have been uploaded to the site, and 13% of users are uploading videos. The other 87% are there to watch game videos like this one from Guitar Hero:
The company will announce they’ve closed a $3 million second round of financing, adding to the $500,000 they raised previously. True Ventures led the round, with participation from HitForge, SoftTechVC and a number of individuals.
Kim, who’s 19, dropped out of Berkeley last year to launch WeGame. This is his third startup.
Quite a feat for a 19year old. kudos to him!
but let’s not forget how much money youtube lost, before it got taken seriously. suddenly 3million sounds like chump change
o/
I’ve been privileged enough to the wegame client in the most earliest of early beta forms.
I saw what how they started, I’m seeing how they are progressing.
and I can honestly say, this is just the start, this company is going to become big.
props to him! If he doesn’t succeed then he can always go back to school and join the EECS crew. Most of the people working at fotoflexer.com are from CAL.
A great start to a great idea!
Free game recording software? A place to instantly upload it? Why didn’t I think of that
It’s all about niche markets now….
WeGame is youtube for gamers
youporn is youtube for porn
imeem is youtube for music
redtube is youtube for porn
stage6 was youtube for bittorrent users
xtube is youtube for porn
dailymotion is youtube for french people
neat site and neat idea – although right now it’s difficult to get an idea of the scale, Kim might say that 7000 videos have been uploaded but the site only shows 100 pages of results (12 to a page = 1200 videos in total browsable) so I’m guessing there are some back end issues that need to be worked out. $3 million will probably go some way to helping that, though. heh.
@7 … 100 pages seems like a pretty nice number to cap it off at, don’t ya think?
Hey yongfook,
Thanks for commenting! We only show 100 pages worth of results, but the whole library can be discovered through filters and text searches.
For example, you can look at the last (100th) page of WoW videos here: http://www.wega...ge100/?game=wow
Best,
Jared
Yet another teenager to make me feel like I wasted my youth on vicarious living. Don’t these kids know how to kill a few brain cells anymore?!?!? Rebellion just ain’t what it used to be.
Good idea. Very well executed. A lot of potential!
I see two issues for WeGame:
(a) In the case of the video example, that’s Activision’s intellectual property they are showing, plus music Activision have licensed. Same goes for Blizzard and WoW.
Companies like Activision are notoriously fond of lawsuits and profits.
To quote Kotick, CEO of Activision “if artists and labels are making money off Guitar Hero, [Activision] want to be making money off the artists and labels, in terms of both straight profits and in things like advertising and marketing presence.”
(b) Outside MMORPG’s like Wow, WeGame won’t work on Xbox, Wii or PS3, which is the majority of the gaming market. Console game sales were 6x PC games in 2007, so WeGame is only able to serve a fraction of the market.
i like it and wish him luck.
You completely miss the point AnnaM;
Wegame is more than just a video share website, it comes with free game video/sound recording software – Something that is generally $30 for a private license, this is a great idea and has a lot of potential.
My first reaction was … HOLY SMOKES!! 19??? And green became my colour … but you know what!! Good for him. Congrats!!
@16
Hey BR-
Jeff from WeGame here. This is a subject that was on our minds.
The two most notorious machinima-producing games, World of Warcraft and Halo, have relatively liberal policies regarding video content made from their games:
http://www.worl...ima/letter.html
http://www.xbox...loper/rules.htm
To summarize for you though, their feeling is that content created from their games is acceptable as long as users aren’t charged to view it and the author does not claim ownership of the video.
Jared, did you develop this site just by yourself?
@20. LiquidSilver
I developed the website by myself using the LAMP stack, but I have some awesome people on the WeGame team who created the recording application and the server architecture
Best,
Jared
Great idea. I wasted an hour on the site watching Starcraft II videos today. I think it will succeed, its much cleaner and intuitive to watch trailers than those other gamer sites. Have you ever tried reading an article or watching a video on IGN? Yuck. The funding might have something to do with his relationship to Jason Calacanis.
http://twitter....tuses/769977961
Hi Jared, thank you for sharing the info with us. I wish you and your team the best of luck!
How does or will this system make any revenues?
Congrats Jared!!!
Looks like a decent service. Youtube just has too much of an audience in my opinion to use it.
As for the 19 year old founder. Damn good job.
Brendan
http://www.guitarheronews.com
Since there is a Guitar Hero vid I figured id drop a link.
good idea. But the quality is pretty bad, is it from the uploader or the way you convert it?
Jared is your powner.
Go Jared!
(Now you owe us Dim Sum!)
=)
Wrong.. he turned 20 in February.
Happy b’day Michael
Congrats to the founders of this site… Found it via the twitter conversation of Jason Calacanis. Props and good luck… $3mm for a gaming video site… Hope they don’t burn through the bandwidth too quickly w/ that..
Dang, I turn 20 soon, and haven’t made my startup(s) come alive.
Great job Jared, if I didn’t catch the entrepreneurial bug earlier, I would be still playing Counter-Strike and uploading it to your service!
Good Luck with WeGame!
Third startup? What are we calling a startup? And how long could the others have lasted? You’re saying this is the third actual company this kid has founded?I’d love for an elaboration. Or did you mean third website?
Great job Jared!
I love the idea of the free game recording software! It really sets this niche video sharing community apart from anything else.
I love the design of the site, though the platform seems eerily similar to video sharing scripts that are out there from:
http://phpmotion.net
http://alstraso.../videoshare.htm
http://www.clip...hare.com/re.htm
Was WeGame custom coded or heavily modified pre-built from a licensed script?
Either way. Great job. Many Successes!
@1
True, but the way everyone is buying startups, this will probably just get incorporated into youtube as a spinoff. Suddenly, being 19 with a few 10’s of millions in cash/stock is a nice gig.
Already exists and has for a while.
This is nothing new.
Congrats Jared, great job you did here! It is all about the niche markets these days.
WeGame will probably be celebrating by having lunch at Ming’s today. See you there.
Good luck to Jared. Makes me think maybe I should look for funding and get more serious about GameTours. Problem is I’m also running three startups at once and have most of my money (and time) tied up in the one that is cash flow positive…
I just downloaded the song!
Jared do you twitter? Great job on the site. As someone who runs a small gaming business it’s great to see someone having success with sites and services that cater to gamers.
http://twitter..../BJtheLabMonkey
@16
Jeff – the licenses you quote say “strictly for noncommercial and personal use”. I don’t see how WeGame meets that definition? It seems like you are at the whim of the game companies.
Anyway, not meaning to rain on your parade. Congrats on the funding and good luck!