SharkJumping

On the heels of Gizmondo's US launch this week (profiled here), comes news from industry site GamesIndustry.biz that the recent top level executive resignations were allegedly due to their ties to the Swedish Mafia.  First question is: "Who knew there was a Swedish Mafia?"  Second question is "Will Gizmondo release a new game called Gizmondo:  Grand Theft Company"?  Third question is "When the execs said they were leaving to pursue entrepreneurial ventures, did that mean loansharking (Gizmondo allegedly borrowed $21M from the execs) and extortion (imagine the possible repayment terms - see the Torpedo below)?

But it's really too easy, so I'll stop there, but you have to read the article - hiring the Swedish Mafia's Debt Collector (aka "Torpedo") to be one's head of security is certainly creative HR.  This situation is now moving past both the Infinium Labs and Acclaim sagas to claim the top reason to believe the video game business still hasn't fully matured.

However, the stock market today reacted by driving the price up 11% to a $450M valuation, thus giving pause to those who believe in the market  "papal infallibility" test - again, company moving to zero...