Who is Nicholas Lovell? Long Version

You are viewing the long version. See the medium version or short version

For fifteen years, Nicholas Lovell has been involved in the overlapping areas of technology, media and finance. He is a former investment banker and web entrepreneur who helps games developers become publishers. His experience ranges from working in the City in mergers and acquisition, senior executive roles at Internet start-ups ShopSmart and GameShadow and starting his own consultancy Lodestar Partners providing financial advice to computer and video games companies.

Nicholas believes that we are entering a golden age of game development. Digital distribution has made it possible to access niche markets and self-publish a game, creating the perfect environment for unique projects to thrive. He has long been an advocate of the `free to play’ model, arguing that the switch from atoms to bits gives consumers the power to set their own price. With the success of the free-to-play model now widely accepted, Nicholas writes, consults and speaks publicly on how to reap the rewards of this flourishing new landscape.

Nicholas is a keen writer. He is the founder of Gamesbrief, and a regular commentator on issues facing the games industry in trade publications such as MCV and Develop. He has also had several articles published in Steve Jackson Games’s online magazine Pyramid. He provides strategic and online marketing advice and is a non-executive director at developer nDreams.

Gamesbrief

GAMESbrief is a blog about the business of games. We look behind the headlines to tell you not just what is happening to games, but why it matters to your business. From Activision to Zynga, we analyse the companies who are making waves in the games industry and the new platforms, like Facebook, iOS and Unity, that are changing the market. In addition, the site is full of helpfulresources for developers setting off on the path of self-publishing, or established companies seeking to understand how the market is changing.

As well as regular analysis features from Nicholas, the site hosts many guest posts from successful game developers. You might want to check out the ongoing series of development diaries from mobile developer Spilt Milk Studios, while if you’re thinking of seeking funding for your company, our 50 Questions about Venture Capital series is a must-read.

You can get GAMESbrief delivered straight to your inbox – subscribe to our email service for free and get a daily or weekly news and information bulletin. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed, follow us on Twitter or even Like the site on Facebook.

Consultancy

Nicholas helps people and companies understand the place where games meet the Internet. He has written about it in several books, and host regular masterclass sessions on specific topics about self-publishing. If you’d like Nicholas to work with you more directly, he would love to talk to you about your business. Drop him an email, or learn more about consultancy.

Executive

Gaming

Until late 2014, Nicholas was Non-Executive Director at nDreams, the development studio established by Patrick O’Luanaigh to create accessible games with compelling storylines for new and under-served market segments. He continues to advise them as a consultant. The studio is currently working with Sony on an unnamed project.

He was chief executive at GameShadow, which started life as a piece of technology that automatically keeps a gamer’s software updated with the latest fixes, patches and free updates. During Nicholas’ tenure, GameShadow switched from a subscription-based to a free service, implemented an advertising revenue model that saw revenues growing ten-fold, reached a million registered users and launched a social network for gamers.

Consumer Internet sector

In 1999/2000, Nicholas was the lead equity research analyst for Deutsche Bank in Europe focusing on the consumer Internet sector, covering companies such as Freeserve, Lycos Europe and Terra Lycos. ” Deutsche Bank was ranked No 1 for “Understanding of the New Economy” in the Primark Extel Survey 2000. Nicholas was a board level director at ShopSmart, one of the UK’s rst comparison shopping websites. He was responsible for raising over 13.5 million in capital and managing the finances and financial systems as the company grew ten-fold to over 2.2 million in revenue.

Corporate finance

At Deutsche Bank, Nicholas was responsible for the origination and execution of media corporate finance business, including mergers and acquisitions, equity capital, private equity and debt products. He particularly focused on the areas of new media, computer games and advertising agencies.

He founded consultancy Lodestar Partners, which provided independent corporate nance advice to companies in the video and computer games industries. Assignments ranged from mergers and acquisitions and capital raising to general strategic advice. Clients included SCi/Eidos, Codemasters, Kuju, Blitz, Argonaut and Deutsche Bank.