Digital Ad Spending In Games Charted

BY

The market for digital ads is growing, and games are a particularly good target. Digital marketing software solution firm Kenshoo has collected some key information about the market and placed it into this handy infographic. Some highlights: 30 percent of gamers access games via mobile devices and by 2018 over 53 percent of social network users (101.8 million people) are expected to be active social gamers. The average age of gamers is 30 and 55 percent are male. 59 percent of internet users in EMEA are active gamers (58 percent in the Americas), making online advertising a perfect channel to target current and potential gamers.

Source: Kenshoo

TV’s Favorite Startup Gets An IRL Website

BY

Silicon Valley‘s Pied Piper now has their very own site taking both content marketing and humor to the next level. You’ll find the team hard at work with nary a moment to finish a whole slice of pizza. With job titles like, “Consulting Associate Software Executive Consultant (Title Under Review)” and “Chief Executive of Physical Space (Landlord)”, it’s worth taking a look to see how the show’s writing definitely informs its campaign.

Ultimately the point is to get you to follow the show on Facebook or Twitter and it makes a good case to willingly ensnare you. Check out Pied Piper online here.

‘Find Your Destination’ With JW Marriott

BY

It seems Facebook feeds have been inundated with quizzes lately of the mostly Buzzfeed variety. What television antihero are you? Are you a beauty addict?

JW Marriott has gotten on board too with ‘Find Your Destination,’ a helpful app which helps would-be travelers decide which of the hotel’s locations suits them the best. Now you’ll know for certain if you should spend your vacation in Cancun or California’s Palm Desert.

The app utilizes Facebook’s interface to increase the likelihood of sharing and prompts users who might be interested in seeing package deals on the destination they should check out.

Find out for yourself {link no longer active} which destination is calling you, whether you’re mad about golf or in need of a spa getaway.

Lifesum Nabs $6.7 Million In Series A Funding

BY

Congrats Marcus Gners, Henrik Torstensson and the whole Lifesum team– $6.7 million in a first round of external financing is no small chunk of change! Investors in Lifesum are German multinational media company Bauer Media Group and SparkLabs Global Ventures.

It was one of the largest funding rounds for a mobile startup company in Europe so far this year. Finnish company Next Games, with CEO Teemu Huuhtanen, are among the others which recently raised $6 million.

You may have heard of Lifesum in its early days when it was still called ShapeUp Club.

I had skyped with its founders Tove Westlund and Martin Wählby in Sweden over two years ago and I remember being impressed by how many users they had amassed with their bootstrap approach and the potential to monetize the app and grow beyond the base in Sweden.

I then had the opportunity to meet the team in person a few months ago in Stockholm after CEO Henrik Torstensson and deputy CEO Marcus Gners had joined and was again very impressed by their dedication and focus.

The funding for Lifesum should be seen in the light of the rise of the The Quantified Self Movement, a growing cause to incorporate technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person’s daily life in terms of inputs (such as food consumed), states (like blood oxygen levels), and performance (both mental and physical). It is also referred to as “Lifelogging” and includes self-monitoring and self-sensing combining wearable sensors and computing like those found in a smartphone. Some other examples of this movement includes apps such as SleepCycle, Nike Fuelband and RescueTime which is a productivity app.

The Quantified Self movement and the hardware and software that go along with it have successfully taken a lot of cues from the gaming industry. Many on the management team at Lifesum have experience working in gaming companies, such as Stardoll.

On the console gaming side, there are cameras like Microsoft Kinect, which have the capability to accurately track body movements, heart rate and more, which allows online fitness and gaming will be able to merge like never before.

On the mobile side, the key to success for Lifesum, as well as for many of the other Quantified Self apps out there, is to make it fun for the user as well as giving clear rewards for inputting as much data as possible using smartphone functionalities such as a GPS. The ultimate goal is to get the user to keep checking the app to see progress towards certain goals such as weight loss. Those rewards can be virtual like online trophies, but also social, like posting to your Facebook timeline to get recognition from your peers.

Lifesum has been very successful with more than 6.5 million app downloads across Europe on iOS and Android to date– but it’s not all fun and games. The long-term success for Lifesum will depend on its ability to build a brand, showing that it has real positive impact on its users’ everyday lives and turn users of the free app into premium users with a paid subscription.

There is a lot more to come in this exciting field which combines consumer electronics, digital media and technology.

If you want to find out more, the best way is to download and try it out for yourself. Lifesum’s app can be found here for iOS.

Image Source: The Connectivist

Ultralinks Invade The ‘Max Steel’ Season 2 Campaign

BY

Teenage superhero Max Steel is back to save Earth from the Ultralink Invasion, and now there’s a mobile app direct from N-Tek that lets his fans join the fight. 

Partnering with Ayzenberg Group, Mattel has launched an interactive experience on MaxSteel.com/Invasion {links no longer active} to promote Season 2 of the popular animated series. With the Season 2 trailer on broadcast channels drawing traffic into the experience, a second customizable trailer powered by Google Maps allows users to choose a city near them to watch Max battle the Ultralinks on familiar turf. The action of Season 2 comes to life in the augmented reality Max Steel Ultralink Invasion app that anchors the interactive experience.

Downloadable for iOS and Android {links no longer active} from iTunes and Google Play for phone and tablet, the free new app uses the device’s camera and touchscreen to track, battle and capture Ultralinks in real-world environments wherever you are. With a Max Steel feature film moving into production for 2015, this franchise continues to “Go Turbo.”

The Business Card Video Game

BY

Business cards seem to be a dime a dozen, merely handed out for business contact or the occasional free lunch from a fishbowl drawing. However, Kevin Bates has created one that’s so much more.

He’s introduced the “Arduboy,” an interactive digital business card that offers nine hours of play time with the classic game Tetris, using controls that are built into the card.

The card is made from a number of simple, easy components, including a Barebones Arduino, an OLED screen and a Piezo Speaker.

Though the card does requite some assembly, Bates is putting together a kit for interested parties. He plans to launch a KickStarter sometime in the next few weeks to get manufacturing off the ground.

You can view the “Arduboy” in action below.

 

Digital And Retail Game Sales Rise

BY

Whoever says video games aren’t selling as well as they used to lately isn’t looking at all the numbers.

A report from the NPD Group shows that $3.45 billion was spent on video game content in the United States during the third quarter of this year, a 17 percent increase over the previous year’s numbers. That includes physical retail games, as well as digital full games and downloadable content across various platforms. As a result, the games industry shows the largest growth amongst other industries since the second quarter of 2011.

Breaking down the numbers, $1.3 billion was spent on physical video and PC releases, while $436 million was spent on other forms of physical content, mainly used and rental purchases. The remaining $1.72 billion was generated by digital sales, which included mobile content, subscriptions, DLC and virtual item sales. The digital sales total is now significantly larger than physical retail sales in the US.

“Trends during the third quarter were the best that we have observed since the second quarter of 2011, driven by growth across both the physical and digital sides of the video game industry,” said Liam Callahan, industry analyst.  “The launch of Grand Theft Auto V helped propel the new physical sales by twenty percent and continued growth of console digital full games as well as downloadable add-on content is an indication of the renewed health of the industry. We expect that the launches of Microsoft’s Xbox One and the Sony PS4 will continue to fuel consumer excitement and spending for games heading into the holiday season.”

Source: NPD

Generate Your Sweater

BY

Coke Zero is getting the (competitive) spirit of the holidays going early this year with their Sweater Generator. No need to knit or crochet at all– you are able to control the details down to the color, pattern and decorative details to make the most aggressively ugly sweater imaginable. Why not mingle palm trees with evergreens and throw in a baked turkey, too

Coke Zero is hoping that you won’t just keep your hideous creations to yourself but will also share them over social media, trotting out your ugly sweater to get some votes. That’s right– as early as December 1st, the top 100 sweaters will actually be produced and sent to the lucky contest winners, surely the toast of this year’s ugly sweater parties. If you don’t feel like creating one for yourself, but want to support, you’ll be able to see what others are doing by checking out #sweatergenerator on Twitter.

Now, if only we could order these sweaters . . .

 

Source: AdWeek

SuperData Digital Game Sales For October 2013

BY

In collaboration with Joost van Dreunen, CEO and co-founder of SuperData, we are continuing to publish these reports as a monthly column on the [a]list daily.

“The digital games category reached $1,032 million in total sales in October, up 11 percent from last year. Main drivers this month were the improvement of both the free-to-play MMO category, which reached $261 million, and the subscription-based MMOs, which were up 5 percent at $86 million in sales. Both mobile games and the social category were flat, and offset the seasonal uptick in DLC on both PC and console. We anticipate an increase in user acquisition cost unlike we’ve seen before, with publishers aggressively buying users to claim a top market position during the holiday season,” said van Dreunen.

The report shows social games staying steady while spending increased at 12 percent as compared to last year. Sales in the free-to-play category have increased 15 percent, although there were 1.7 million fewer players since last month. Free-to-play is expected to get less attention for the rest of the year as people turn their attention to consoles during the holidays. For pay-to-play, revenue continues to be on a downward slope while spending increased to $86 million.

Mobile revenue has gone up 27 percent since last year, but growth was flat in October and revenue had begun to trend downward at a mere 1 percent month-to-month. Social casino games continue to maintain a hold, as this category were in 2 of the 5 top grossing mobile games.

As seasons change, sales patterns follow and this is true of downloadable games on PC and console. Spending has gone up by 25 percent month-over-month in this category. SuperData predicts that downloadable sales will reach $400 million in December.

Source: SuperData

Digital To Hit One-Third Of Console Spend

BY

Digital sales already play a big part in the console gaming scene, between game offerings on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network and growing DLC offerings with every new console game release. However, by 2017, it’ll take a huge leap, according to a report from IHS, with 34 percent of all console software spending going to digital sales.

“A key driver for this digital transition will be publisher ambition to release most games digitally at the same time as boxed versions at retail outlets,” said the report prepared by Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games.

“Those titles that have already experimented with digital ‘day and date’ releases alongside boxed versions have enjoyed a small but growing digital share of total sales volume, but IHS predicts that by 2017 new releases could be enjoying up to 18 per cent digital sales depending on geography.”

Both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are set to offer digital game sales alongside retail releases, though the huge file sizes may sway gamers to install from a disc rather than endure a whopping download. Still, smaller digital titles should be quite popular with gaming audiences.

Source: GamesIndustry International