An old fan contacted me about my last post, enjoyed the investment information and asked for my opinion on other potentially lucrative investment advice. So, I figured I could make a list of "Top 5" companies I've been following so far this year.

I would say that the entertainment industry is a really good investment to be in, even during the bad times like a depression, recession, bubble pop, financial failure, or another form of tragedy or hardship. When things are rough, humans turn to comfort and various escapes from their harsh reality. Drugs, alcohol and the world's oldest profession are common escapes, but for those that don't take risks or can't afford them, they turn to entertainment options like music, movies, and especially video games. People will always need entertainment, and they'll always find ways to pay for it. And there are many public video game companies that are worthwhile long-term investments, even overseas, like in Japan.

1. Nintendo of Japan (today: 25,600 JPY)

Usually I don't follow Japanese companies because I don't have many contacts there. So, I use various tools to measure trends and statistics across several social media sites and internet sites to determine the future popularity and potential sales of new hardware or software. Based on what I've seen, Nintendo is going to do very well this year with the Nintendo Switch and many of their exclusive games. I double-checked my suspicions by calling up several call centers, and learned that practically every retail store is completely sold out on pre-orders as well as their suppliers. And, they were still receiving thousands more in requests. It even reached a point where they will need to cancel pre-orders because of the shortages (and because their own employees and VIPs want some themselves too.)

The NS will be much hotter than most anticipate and the Nintendo stock is very low right now. It's a very safe bet to get into the company right now, and I'm confident that the stock will surge once word gets out that Nintendo will need to increase production levels. I wouldn't be surprised if they doubled it. So, I would get in on this investment right away. It's going to go nuts this year.

2. Best Buy (today: $48.00 USD)

Normally, I would tell you to STAY AWAY from shitty retail stocks. Stay away from all of them. BUT, in this unique case involving the Nintendo Switch this year, you'll see a spike in Best Buy stock. Keep in mind, that this will just be temporary. So, you're going to go in and out on this one. Normally, you do not want to invest long-term in retail stocks as they are slowly being consumed.

Invest in Best Buy sometime soon, but then follow Nintendo announcements. Once they make a statement about their pre-order or production numbers, you'll see their stock surge. This will also follow suit with BBY. Wait until it peaks out, and then dump your stock before it slowly drops over the proceeding one or two weeks. This will net you a short term profit, but I figured I would mention it due to my high confidence in Nintendo this year.

2(b). Twitter (today: $14.40 USD)

Speaking of shitty things to invest in, Twitter has been at an all-time low this month so it's a good time to buy a lot of their stocks. Twitter is actually horribly overvalued, but rich assholes and clever stock-brokers have been manipulating this market for a long time, and they are going to continue pumping up this stock.

I'll be getting another short-term gain from this company, but Twitter is not something I want to long-term invest in. They have a high market cap, but little actual value. Smart people will invest in this company to take advantage of the stupid people who think Twitter will actually be profitable in a few years. So, buy now, wait for it to go up another $5-8, and then sell it all.

3. Gameloft (today: $14.98 USD)

Although I don't know a lot of people working for Public Japanese Companies, I definitely have contacts and listen to people from Activision Blizzard and Vivendi. =]

I've been told to invest in Gameloft as soon as possible. I suggest you do the same. You may have missed out on the Gameloft takeover by Vivendi, but there's another opportunity now to make a little bit off Gameloft right now still. There is tons of chatter in the office places about Vivendi making some major investments into them, so it appears that there's a really big push coming to strengthen the company and expand.

4. Glu Mobile (today: $2.25 USD)

I mostly ignored this company, mostly for personal reasons: I didn't like their game library and offerings. But, word is that they have been talking to a lot of different franchise companies, and they have had successful negotiations on various IP licensing. They're moving into sports franchises, which is going to be really hot on mobiles this year and next. Card games too will be very popular on mobile for the next few years, so this is a very positive trend for the company. Once they get their name out there some more, I'm sure that other sports franchises will be more interested in working with them as well. So, now I'm actually investing in them that now I have more confidence in their future.

5. Zynga Inc. (today: $2.78 USD)

Ah Zynga, the prancing fool. They've made a lot of foolish decisions, but I think someone in management is finally learning their lesson, and trying to correct their mistakes. They still have strong revenue from their highly addictive games (Zynga Poker is trending big), but now they are finally making deep cuts, laying off staff, and significantly reducing their operating expenses. This is a very good indication, and it means that they are significantly undervalued at the moment. I won't be surprised if they can reach $4 again in the near future. This is another solid investment to be in right now.

Investments

If you know anything about me, you might say that I have an unhealthy obsession with video game companies, particularly their inner workings. I do a significant amount of digging into financials, business practices, employee posts, public boards, talk to industry employees, and listen to chatter from the industry.

I've written a lot about Activision, Blizzard, EA, and Ubisoft in the past. But, what you might not know is that I also frequently invest in video game companies. I won't invest in something I don't fully understand however. Investing is like gambling, except you can have an edge simply by doing proactive research. Activision, EA, and Ubisoft.. their futures were fairly certain in the beginning. I've owned stocks in ATVI since they were $10-11, Ubisoft at $5, and EA at around $15. I had invested in Tencent back when they were 50 HKD too, and I've written about them many times in the past due to their relationship with Blizzard.

You won't find me investing in much other than entertainment, gambling, electronics, and gaming companies.

Now one company that I have been following for a VERY LONG TIME is Guillemot Corporation. I was initially interested in them back when they manufactured video cards, but was surprised when they acquired Hercules. Shortly after that time, the company lost a huge amount of value and they've been quiet for several years. These days, they just do a little amount of sales and they own the ThrustMaster line of gaming joysticks. It is a small, but profitable business. But what many people don't know is that this company was the birthplace of Ubisoft, and they acted as the gaming company for a short time, before splitting off and creating the Ubisoft Corporation as a separate entity. If you look back at ancient versions of the Guillemot website, you can see their old game releases.

Takeovers you say..

Back in November, there was some industry chatter about several different movements taking place within the Guillemot Corporate family, especially within the Shanghai Ubisoft management structure. Something big was happening. I suspected that it might have something to do with fears of a hostile takeover by Vivendi. They already snagged the Guillemot family's Gameloft, and many experts believe that Ubisoft is next on their target list. My suspicion is that key employees, and potentially licenses/contracts, are being juggled around companies within the Guillemot sphere of influence in order to protect themselves, or at least create some obstacles, in the event of a hostile takeover.

Guillemot Corporation was really their only other public company under their complete control, so I purchased various stocks at around 1.30 EUR. I think something big is going to happen here, including some assets being moved from other Ubisoft facilities to this one. It's climbed about 0.20 EUR since then, but I honestly think something big is still going to happen in the near future that will drive up public interest and value in their stock. And even more events taking place until the end of the year.

Of course, this could just be Vivendi attempting to drive up the stock price of Ubisoft, before selling it off. They haven't fared too well in the gaming industry, and it's something they should abandon. Nothing increases stock prices more than increasing your stake in a company, spreading rumors and then denying them.

And you mentioned something about "penny stocks"?

But now my attention is on a smaller public gaming company. It's a penny-stock too, something I've never really invested in before. It was a Canadian company called Imperus Technologies Corp., who renamed themselves to 'Tangelo Games' (currently at $0.04) after acquiring Diwip Ltd. out of Israel, and Akamon Entertainment out of Spain. There's really nothing to write home about these companies, they don't create anything too special or unique like the big guys, but they have a lot of experience constantly pumping out small gambling and casino games for mobile devices. And, they are very successful. Currently, the company is very profitable, but they are also massively in debt from previous investments and decisions.

There are two primary players in this company that interest me: James Lanthier (CEO) & Vicenç Martí (previously owned Akamon and was made President of Tangelo).

Vicenç owns another company too, called 'Billy Mobile' that operates in the exact same building as Akamon Entertainment. Interestingly, just a few weeks ago, the offices of Billy Mobile were raided by police in Spain. The operation was related to mobile telephony fraud. =]

From what I dug up however, it's only because of their very aggressive marketing (too many text messages to users who complained.) They'll get off with a slap on the wrist and a small fine. But, that Billy Mobile company he owns looks like it's going to be highly successful. If it was a public company, I would have invested in it by now. I think it's going to make big waves, but only in certain countries where their aggressive strategies are still legal. And, I suspect that Billy Mobile will be utilized by Tangelo Games in the future as well. Billy is Vicenç's baby, the golden son, and where I think most of his efforts are currently being placed. He sees it as a billion-dollar company, and he's not wrong.

Now the CEO of Tangelo, James Lanthier, he's a different creature. His primary passion isn't exactly creating video games, but rather increasing the value of entertainment companies, and then selling them off as a complete package. He's into acquisitions and being acquired. Two men with different drives. From what I see, James has been working on reducing company debt - so I don't think there's going to be any problems here. It's a highly profitable business, really just running on old titles at the moment, that will be able to pay off the debt within a reasonable time frame.

And from the developer stand point, the teams are all still busy and hard at work. They aren't developing new games, but rather porting over all of their existing libraries onto a new platform (Unity) so that it can be supported on new devices. New graphics, new engine, and more devices of simple casino games that have worked. There is currently a hiatus of game releases, however there is going to be a huge rush of titles being released simultaneously at the end of this year.

So, what we have is a hugely undervalued company, with very little investment risk, a flood of titles coming out at the end of this year and early next year, and managers who are driven to make the company valuable enough to be acquired. That sounds like a reasonable investment to me, and if you also want to make some money with little risk, I would advise investing this company at the $0.04 rate or under before the end of 2017.

Much has changed within the past five years leading a better level of comfort, I guess you'd say.

For example, the public is much more aware now of the type of internet harassment and intimidation that takes place. And, there are more laws slowly appearing to protect internet users from cyber-bullying. Back when I started, death threats and attacks against female bloggers weren't well known of at all, and the term "misogyny" just started to go mainstream. So at least now it's a known and public issue, making it more difficult for aggressors.

So, what's all happened in the past five years?

• A handsome rogue leaked confidential NSA information, verifying what most rational thinkers in the world already knew.
• We were all supposed to die of Ebola according to main stream media.
• We were all supposed to die of the Zika Virus according to main stream media.
• The Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House failed.
• Blizzard pulled off the best Legion marketing stunt ever when they turned the Olympic pools green.
• Various game developers successfully hyped extremely disappointing games. The gaming media agreed that they would never be fooled again.
• Project Titan was cancelled, and scavenged to create a successful TF2 clone competitor.
• All of the big names have left Blizzard.

A little bit about me during the past five years:

I've been doing consulting work with AAA developers and publishers, helping them sky-rocket their wealth. And, I've launched three very successful titles that I designed. Occasionally, I have some free time on my hands, and decided to fire up the old blog. I haven't decided what to write about yet, if I write anything at all, but I thought some old readers would at least appreciate the nostalgia.

If I do write about something, I will try to make it original content. I dislike re-posted garbage, and opinions on trending news items. I can't talk specifics due to non-disclosures, but I may enjoy writing about the gaming industry from a general development or finance side.

I love the work of indie developers, so I can definitely provide some useful advice and strategies that they're currently not aware of. I may even review some indie games who don't know how to market themselves.

Who knows.

I'll try this out with comments disabled. It'll be better if people can't send "messages" to me directly. I've gone back and cleaned up the blog, removed irrelevant posts (e.g. exploits and gold making that no longer apply), and tried to focus it some more. Unfortunately, it looks like some old imgur links have died but I can't do much about that.