The latest shiny object to catch the eye of today's digerati is Empire Avenue. The service markets itself as "The Social Media Exchange – buy and sell your friends and own anyone on the social web!" The concept of a virtual stock market assigning values to people and properties isn't new; a similar concept called …
Category Archives: Gaming
Wii!
I bought two new pieces of consumer technology this weekend. One, I returned. The other is now on display in the middle of my living room. I bought an iPhone from the Apple store on Friday night right after 9 pm. I cancelled the next morning given that it would take 2 – 4 weeks …
Sucrology and game mechanics
Max Kalehoff wrote a post in June about "Game Mechanics Applied to Marketing And Brands." The idea has recently gotten some mainstream attention highlighting a framework of five key tenets explaining why people enjoy games – and how the same principles can be applied to marketing (more on this in a second). On an Aer …
Machinima goes mainstream
Brentter has posted an ad by W+K in GTA style, as part of the Coke Side of Life campaign. Awesome. More companies need to pick up on this and other emerging design treatments – this is advertising that consumers will want to watch. Might not make you buy more in the short term, but definitely …
Inflation-adjusted game console prices
Great information from Curmudgeon Gamer. The pic at left shows inflation-adjusted game console prices from the past thirty years. Thinking about dropping around $600 an xbox hd dvd 360 or ps3? Just think about that Atari 2600 you used to play pitfall and yar’s revenge on – $659.41 – and rationalize away. Tags: atari 2600, …
A guide to gaming for marketers
Josh Larson, director of industry products at CNET’s Games & Entertainment group, has a great article in the spotlight over at iMedia Connection. He uses examples to illustrate different types of marketing opportunities in games: Product placement Game content websites Gaming tournament sponsorships Dynamic in-game ads Advergaming Looking forward to the followup article later this …
Show me the machinima
Another feature in the March issue of Wired discusses "rotoscoping" – the process of painting over live actors to create cartoon characters with realistic movement. Charles Schwab had used this treatment in 2005 and I think another FS company has been using it recently (Citibank?). It’s great to see more creative treatments making their way …
Valve v. In-Game Ads – It’s a Bluff
If you’re a gamer, you’ve read about Valve vs. Subway, Engage, et al. and ads in Counter-Strike. Is Valve really upset? It’s all a bluff. How did CS originate in the first place? Through consumer mods that were so popular, they commercialized it. Hmmm, sounds like the story of Red Hat and Linux. With all …