Super 8 Launches First Tweet Movie Sneak Preview

BY

Sneak preview showings of J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 will take place 1 day, Thursday, June 9, in advance of the film s scheduled nationwide release on Friday, June 10. To promote entrance to sneak previews, a hashtag #Super8Secret,  {link no longer active} which is also a promoted trend, will allow Twitter users to buy tickets to the advanced previews. Super 8 sneak preview moviegoers will be treated to a free popcorn with a concession purchase. This is the first sneak preview for Twitter. Check out the official destination on Twitter for more information and use the hashtag to share information about the movie with friends.

Devil May Cry On Screen

BY

Reports are that Screen Gems has purchased feature film rights to Capcom’s Devil May Cry franchise. Kyle Ward (Fiasco Heights) will write the script, which revolves around the character of Dante avenging his mother who was killed off demons.

Screen Gems is responsible for the Resident Evil franchise of movies which has made more than $580 million in worldwide box office revenue. The Devil May Cry franchise has sold over 10 million units worldwide and is being rebooted by Ninja Theory with DMC.

Itagaki Says U.S. Management Knows Games Better Than In Japan

BY

Valhalla Studios’ Tomonobu Itagaki is working with THQ instead of a Japanese publisher on Devil’s Third. He said that was because he felt like Japanese game management don’t get games the way executives do in the U.S.

“The head, the guy I’m involved with, is [THQ’s EVP of core games] Danny Bilson. As you know he can make movies, he can write novels, scripts, he can do TV, and he can do games as well, and also he’s a businessman as well, said Itagaki. He’s that kind of guy, so it’s really fun to do business with that.

“More so in the U.S. than in Japan, I think there are a lot of top management people who actually know how to make games. I think there are more people here like that, than in Japan. I think it’s a good thing, he said. Those guys know how to make games — so they know it takes money to make good games. Those two aspects are on a direct one-to-one relationship. So I think it’s very practical to be that way.”

“In Japan, management people sort of pretend they know what they’re doing, he added. Those management people, they say, ‘I love games,’ but they don’t know how to make them… It’s the opposite of practical. It’s not practical.”

Itagaki has a falling out with his former employer Tecmo over unpaid bonuses, eventually resulting in a lawsuit and settlement.

Source: Gamasutra

YouTube User Gets Facebook Friends Tattooed

BY

YouTube user Susyj87 showed just how far social integration has come for her. She recently completed a tattoo of 152 of her Facebook friends (in full color!) and posted a video detailing the multi-month process.

“Of course I gave it a lot of thought,” she said on her YouTube page. “These are not all my friends. Just the people I care most about. I got their permission and they were very proud to be on it. To me it represents who I am right now and the time we live in. And of course I love the looks of it.”

Source: AdWeek

 

Rift Opening Up To 1 Million Players

BY

Rift has managed to make believers out of a lot of people that thought that World of Warcraft couldn’t be taken on. Despite a $50 million investment in Rift so far, Trion Worlds’ SVP of publishing David Reid is confident in Rift’s business going forward.

“We are on the verge of selling our 1 millionth unit of Rift,” he said. “These [numbers represent] real people who have bought the client, installed it, paid for it and played the game,” he said.

“We’re really pleased with what we’re seeing. And beyond that, it was a pleasure to see that in the latest Activision Blizzard earnings call, they inquired about Rift when Blizzard announced that their subscriber numbers went from 12 million to 11.4 million,” he said. “You can do some math… we know very well where those 600,000 people are.

“I think that there is a pattern or history that you can see across other [MMOs],” said Reid. “…We have seen that when new games launch, people go and play them, then people go back to World of Warcraft. That has been historically true. I think it would be a mistake to look at past history as an indicator of future performance in this case. We know we have a very stick game, we know we are getting a lot of success right now. … If in fact the 600,000 players [Blizzard] lost came to Rift, I don’t think they’ll be getting those 600,000 people back as quick as they did from Aion, Conan, Warhammer and the like.”

Source: Gamasutra