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W3i: Playing the Game

In 1998, brothers and St. Cloud State students Rob and Ryan Weber founded Freeze.com, which offered free clip art, screensavers, desktop wallpaper, and other downloads. How’d they make money off of free stuff? Before customers could install these items, they had to click through a pitch to download software that generates revenue by displaying ads on users’ computers. Every time someone clicked “yes,” the Webers got a cut from the advertising software developer. By 2004, Freeze.com’s revenues were more than $20 million. That success with desktop software is helping fund the firm’s ambitious dive into mobile gaming. In December, the company—which rebranded as W3i in 2007—capitalized an investment fund called Recharge Studios. The fund partners with independent developers and publishers to develop and market their games.

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