Cruising for a bruising

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 …

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 …