Talk:Improbable (company)

I've set this page on Improbable up and tried to maintain NPOV. However, given that I work for the company, I'm going to step away from it now, so others with no conflicts of interest can assess it properly.Grill (talk) 11:18, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Lots of press coverage in Bloomberg, FT - surely notable?
Per WP:ORGCRITE: "A company, is presumed notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."

- Significant coverage - Improbable has been the *sole subject* of multiple profiles and new stories in global/national mass media. These headlines reference the subject: not just a passing mention. E.g. - Independent coverage in Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Times of London, and The Telegraph is enough, right? They're as reliable as any newspaper sources get.

There are a few self-published sources, but they were produced by subject matter experts. There are very few firms constructing the "plumbing" for the metaverse, therefore practically all experts on this topic are in-house by definition.

The papers are writing about Improbable for a mix of reasons:

a) The metaverse is getting lots of attention, and Improbable is arguably second only to Facebook/Meta in metaverse development, certsainly in term sof column inches in europe. Herman Narula is a leading metaverse expert (he gave a TED talk on gaming and virtual worlds, with 2m+ views; also regular media pundit on TV, BBC5, Sky and Bloomberg TV).

b) All investments by SoftBank and A16Z tend to receive global media attention. Softbank's investment in improbable was the largest ever in a European IT company. It's funded with £1bn (billion, not million) in investor money: that amount tends to draw coverage.

c) Soon after inception, Improbable was valued at £2bn, far higher than European startups. Since this outsized valuation, the firm and its founder have received a lot of headlines.

Improbable sells James-Bond-stuff to government/military, which generates media attention (esp now that hybrid warfare is on the agenda)

The breadth and depth of Improbable's coverage makes it a textbook-notable firm in my view, but if I'm missing something, let me know.--Oiona (talk) 08:12, 2 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Notability seems clear enough. But the article is something of a puff piece. Improbable has been associated with many failed games - Worlds Adrift, Nostos, etc. “He wants to change how games are made, but he hasn’t really made any games,” said Hilmar Veigar Petursson, chief executive of CCP Games, the maker of Eve Online, the space-based role-playing game." (Financial Times paywall.)
 * They also lose money, after 10 years in business.
 * Nothing in the article reflects that. John Nagle (talk) 20:48, 25 October 2022 (UTC)