The [a]list daily got tipped off to a unique item for the adult gamers on your holiday shopping list. An Asian company called Banpresto has created Zippo clone cigarette lighters featuring the names and form factors of classic Sega consoles.
Check them out here {link no longer active}.
Activision enlisted a couple of heavyweight rappers in the TV spot for DJ Hero. The ad puts Jay Z and Eminem on stage to duke it out, highlighting the exclusive mash-up track from the artists that’s featured in the game.
The ad has a couple nifty visual touches. The rappers perform with a backup band and a DJ spinning sounds on a DJ Hero station. As the DJ moves the cross fader bar on the controller, instruments and musicians get dragged across the stage to visually represent how the sound is getting manipulated. The stage also has two starkly different backdrops for Jay Z and Eminem, each reflecting the artist’s persona.
Aside from the exclusive mash-up of Eminem’s “My Name Is (Slim Shady)” and Jay Z’s “Izzo HOVA,” the spot plugs the more than 93 original tracks in the game.
Watch it at YouTube {link no longer active}.
Vodafone has an interesting TV spot being run in New Zealand called Vodaone Symphonia. The mobile phone carrier enlisted musician Jol Mulholland to create an orchestra using the ring tones from 1,000 cell phones. Mulholland built a sound wall with the phones and used 53 different ring tones to compose an electronic version of Tchaikovsky s 1812 Overture.
Vodafone has released behind-the-scenes videos to show that what people see in the ad wasn t just a gimmick. The making-of video shows the very real and elaborate production, including all the cell phone charging, to pull off the minute of music seen in the ad. Both the TV spot and the making of videos are getting nice traffic on YouTube, with more than 360,000 views for the ad and about 73,000 wowed enough to check out the first of two behind-the-scenes.
Watch the spot at YouTube. Check out making-of videos part 1 and part 2. {links no longer active}
New data from Experian Hitwise measuring traffic and engagement on social media sites highlights the rise of Facebook, and reveals a surprising decline in user engagement at Twitter. ReadWriteWeb covers their findings for the top five sites.
The data shows the continued mercurial rise of Facebook. As of September 2009, the number one social site saw an increase in traffic of 194 percent in year-over-year comparison. The report shows nearly 60 percent of all social media traffic goes to Facebook. Meanwhile the popularity of former star MySpace continues to tumble, with a 55 percent decline in traffic in the same period.
The growth category crown goes to Twitter, which had traffic skyrocket by 1,170 percent in the past year. Yet even with that growth the data revealed a couple of surprises about the microblog site. While making number four in the top five list, Twitter draws less than two percent of overall social media traffic. It also had a precipitous drop in user engagement over the past year, which Experian Hitwise measured as falling from 36 minutes to 16 minutes per user. Twitter is topped on the list by Tagged, a new social media player that has been cited for spamming and misrepresenting itself in emails to draw users. The top five list is rounded out by myYearbook, another social site that the study shows might be past its glory days.
Check out the full traffic and engagement results for the five sites at ReadWriteWeb {link no longer active}.
Writing for MarketingProfs, Dave Sohigian looks at how to market to Generation X, showing how the former slackers have become cynical parents who hold a lot of sway over their kids. Ranging in age from 28-48 years old, many Generation Xers are now parents to Millenial kids born after 2000. Sohigian sees a stronger bond and ability to relate between this set of parents and children than the previous generation. He pinpoints part of it to the independent minded Gen Xers who still show little faith in institutions, and as a result tend to be more protective of their children.
That nurturing has established a bond that Sohigian thinks marketers need to take into consideration. In-fact when it comes to products and purchase decisions, he sees a symbiotic bond between the two generations. It s one where parents are as likely to look to their children for advice on products as vice versa. He pinpoints one important consideration by marketers targeting GenXers or their children: brand and message products in a way that plays to their nurturing relationship and resonates with both.
Read more at MarketingProfs.
Game footage leaked from Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 shows a sequence where players become terrorists shooting civilians in an airport, raising eyebrows and prompting the publisher to respond. As AP reports, the footage is from a mission in the game that Activision had anticipated may be disturbing. The publisher and developer Infinity Ward inserted a warning in the game displayed before the mission to give players an option not to play the sequence.
Activision released a statement in response to the leaked video and ensuing media inquiries. The publisher says the footage is not representative of the whole game, and that the scene in question is there to show the atrocities of terrorism. Read more at AP {link no longer active}.
Splash Damage, developer of the upcoming PC action game Brink, says studios that want to make triple-A caliber games should look to console game development. Speaking to Destructoid, the studio s Paul Wedgewood says publishers don t provide budgets for PC games that cover high-profile game essentials such as first-rate music and acting. He says his studio realized some years ago that if it wanted to make triple-A games it needed to move into console game development.
Read more at Destructoid.
Speaking to CVG, Insomniac community manager James Stevenson says the first two years for PS3 have been about developers getting games up and running. His studio just released Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, the third installment in Sony’s franchise on PS3. Stevenson points to his studio and Uncharted developer Naughty Dog as evidence that Sony developers are just hitting their stride on PS3. He thinks the system will show its full potential over the next two to three years. Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time is currently getting good reviews, with an 87 percent average rating on Metacritic.
Read more at CVG {link no longer active}.
Sony’s PlayStation Blog has revealed that SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 is getting pushed to January. Reported in Zergwatch, the blog says the PSP game originally scheduled for holiday release is now slated to come out on January 10, 2010. Sony cites the reason as wanting to incorporate newly acquired assets from the game into a longer global marketing campaign.
Read more at Zergwatch {link no longer active}.
The Screen Actors Guild has rejected a tentative deal for a new contract covering video game work, reports Variety. The new contract was drawn up by the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, which Variety says covers the majority of union voice work in games. The actors union balked at the atmospheric provision in the new contract increasing the number of voices and words demanded from an actor. The new contract expands work at the basic daily rate to 20 voices and 300 words. Variety quotes a video game employers representative as saying it is uncertain whether game companies are willing to return to negotiations.
Read more at Variety.
