Ad Age Viral Video Chart For Week Of Dec. 7

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Ad Age lists the top 10 viral videos for the week of Dec. 7.

A gaggle of Google videos have hit the chart as new entries.  If you missed it, the most compelling is the painstakingly produced video for Google Chrome.  It uses a clever offline approach to showcasing the web browser’s online features.  The others are for Google Goggles (juicy product, bone-dry video) and Google real-time and local search (needed this query: smell smoke in my house ).  A fourth new entry has a worthy cause raising awareness for the UN climate talks in Copenhagen but as a Danish state ministerial production has all the trappings of an overfunded, under-produced government video.

A nifty video that Ad Age has as a returnee to the chart is Samsung’s Extreme Sheep Art promoting its LED HDTVs.  For videogames, Microsoft Natal is still drawing enough eyes to stay frozen in the middle of the pack, while Activision’s Tony Hawk: Ride with hotdog Tillman just barely hangs on at the bottom.

Ad Age’s chart includes number of views for the week and percentage change in views for videos that stayed on the chart.  The list is compiled by Visible Measures.

Check out the full list and watch the videos at Ad Age {link no longer active}.

Fiery Concoction

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Disney’s upcoming racer Split/Second has to be the product of one spirited brainstorming session.  Take the speed and street styling of Need for Speed, the linear destruction derby of Burnout, the combat racing of WipEout, and the environmental mayhem of Twisted Metal, and add many, many more explosions.  That’s the[a]listdaily’s take anyway, and it s too multilayered a cake not to take a slice from when it hits shelves.  In the meantime, we can salivate over trailers that Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich might fight over to direct.

Watch it at GameTrailers {link no longer active}.

In Games, Character Matters

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Writing for Edge-Online, Chris Dahlen puts the spotlight on compelling characters as a critical component of narrative, yet one that’s too often missed by game makers.  As he sees it, creating relatable characters is in many ways a better device for connecting player to game universe.  Instead, too many games still turn to textured storylines, plot twists and other mechanics that aren’t a great fit for the medium.  Among his most poignant arguments is that some of the most engaging games have had less to do with a deep story and more to do with how they took game mechanics such as health givers and lifelines and turned them into characters the player could care about.

Read Chris Dahlen’s article at Edge-Online {link no longer active}.

EA Gets Serious About iPhone Gaming

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Writing for FastCompany, Kit Eaton says EA is getting serious about Apple iPhone and iPod Touch as true gaming platforms.  EA was recently distinguished as the game publisher dominating game app sales based on Apple’s year-end bestsellers list.  The publisher is now preparing three more iPhone apps based on franchises Need for Speed, Spore and The Simpsons.  Eaton says it’s not just that EA is bringing more of its powerhouse licenses to iPhone that points to the publisher s seriousness about the platform.  EA is investing more money to develop games with enough content to make them rival traditional handheld console games.  For instance, EA’s Need for Speed: Shift has far more car licenses up to 20 according to FastCompany and is showing significant graphical improvements over its iPhone predecessor Undercover.   With the other titles, Spore Creatures and The Simpsons Arcade, EA is similarly promising richer features than gamers might expect in an iPhone game app.  Eaton points to the notion introduced by VentureBeat that these are second generation iPhone games.

One observation outside of Fast Company and VentureBeat s coverage: EA is throwing some PR muscle behind the three titles, which speaks volumes about a more serious approach to its iPhone games business.

Read more at FastCompany {link no longer active}.

Survey: Word Of Mouth Trumps Ads In Game Purchases

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Public Relations firm Waggener Edstrom has conducted a survey that once again lends great credence to the influence of word of mouth in videogame purchases.  As reported in Gamasutra, the survey found that friends are three times more likely to influence game purchase decisions than advertising and marketing.   Friends advice trumped family members, with word of mouth among friends twice as likely to influence decisions.

Waggener Edstrom surveyed 507 gamers for the survey.  Coming out of its outreach, the firm also identified a category of influence multipliers defined as people who are able to greatly impact their friends game purchase decisions.  It found that about 21 percent of gamers fit the heavy influencer category.  Read more at Gamasutra.

Down Years Ahead For Consoles, Says Analyst

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DFC Intelligence has released an abstract for their forecast for the game industry, one which paints a less than rosy picture for game console products sold at retail.  DFC says the retail console software market peaked in 2008 at approximately $30 billion worldwide.  The firm forecasts a continuing decline in the market for both console and handheld software settling at about $23 billion worldwide in 2015.  DFC also predicts the global market for all game sales will end up down 12 percent in 2009 compared to last year, and will continue to remain flat through 2012.  The firm s analysis points to one bright spot, predicting that global revenues from digital distribution of game content will grow by more than $10 billion by 2015.

Read more at DFC Intelligence’s abstract {link no longer active}.

Rentrak Merging Retail Ad Data With EEDAR

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Retail data collector Rentrak Game has entered a data sharing agreement with game analyst firm EEDAR, reports Industry Gamers.  As part of the agreement, Rentrak is providing data collected from major retailer ad circulars as part of its Video Game Ad Monitor for EEDAR to merge into its GamePulse service.  EEDAR s service tracks information on more than 10,000 games.  EEDAR chairman Greg Short says providing its clients with Rentrak s data will allow for better analysis of marketing methods that can be applied in promoting future titles.  Merged datasets will be available in Feb. 2010.

Read more at Industry Gamers {link no longer active}.

Disney Interactive President To Keynote D.I.C.E.

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The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced the opening speaker for the D.I.C.E. 2010 Summit as Steve Wadsworth, president of Disney Interactive.  Wadsworth joins this year’s line-up of speakers including David Gallo, director of special projects at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and member of the team that mapped the Titanic; Richard Lemarchand, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves designer at Naughty Dog; Brian Reynolds, chief creative officer at Zynga; and Mike Yuen, VP content and services at Zeebo.

The AIAS D.I.C.E. Summit 2010 takes place Feb. 17-19 at Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas.  Get more information at the D.I.C.E. Summit site {link no longer active}.

Shell Shock

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Eidos has a trailer for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days that shows more like a scene from a traumatized war veteran film than a promotion for a co-op shooting game.  What’s more, the action scenes don’t exactly come across as anything related to the original game’s organized crime setting, instead seeming eerily reminiscent of real-life images of urban warfare.  Maybe it’s that empty soccer field, or the grainy footage.  That confusion of premise aside, and despite foregoing any glimpses of the game, it packs a punch.

Watch it at GameTrailers {link no longer active}.

Top Viral Videos Chart

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Online video pusher Unruly Media, which based on their web site wallpaper just might be responsible for making you watch Evian’s Rollerblading Babies, has a great tool for tracking viral videos.  They have a site that charts top videos based on viewer traffic and provides metrics for each, such as online mentions in different languages and where the videos were included in blogs and Tweets.  Their top 100 chart tracks videos of all kinds, whether branded, user-generated or music videos.  Essentially it’s a list of whatever s drawing eyes.  But they have category charts, for instance to show only the top brand or game  videos, and also the ability to beak down what s been drawing the most traffic by day, week, month or year.

While the[a]listdaily will continue to feature Ad Age’s weekly chart of top ten brand videos, this is a great one to bookmark and keep track of the latest, greatest.  If anything, use it to spot a goodie and be the first to send it to friends. FTW.

Check it out at Unruly Media s site.