‘Lack of digital data is putting off investors’

Venture capitalists view investing in the digital games market as a throw of the dice”, says former Sega boss Mike Hayes.

Hayes joined investment firm Mercia Fund Management in September with a remit to identify potential video game companies to invest in.

And he admitted to MCV that the lack of digital data does make identifying worthy targets tricky. However, he says the firm is determined to look beyond the lack of stats as it seeks promising start-ups.

There is a high degree of concern over the lack of data,” he confessed. The digital games market is seen as a bit of a throw of the dice. However, if there is a disruptive element to it or a great IP attached to it or there is a marvelous piece of technology that underpins it, then that is very interesting to us.

And I think people are interested in investing. You need to make sure it’s tangible rather than ‘here we have this great original idea which is going to sell a million on smartphones’. That sort of thing is more a struggle for us.”