Angry Birds Mad For Ads

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Angry Birds has been downloaded over 250 million times worldwide and time played in the game is over 1 percent of the time spent watching television. Of course, ad revenue isn’t anywhere equivalent of television, but that’s something Rovio is hoping to change by going straight to advertisers with relevant info.

The company has to balance concerns between collecting data from fans and respecting their privacy. “The key is understanding the DNA of your fans,” said Wibe Wagemans, Rovio’s head of marketing and advertising.

“It would be nice to get some new [intellectual property],” Wagemans admitted. However, he noted that by broadening the Angry Birds brand, they’ve been able to reach a wider audience with licensing elements like toys and movies.

Rovio hopes to expand the brand of Angry Birds when it brings the game to Facebook in the coming months. Social networking will be important to the company, and when asked whether Rovio would launch a social network of their own, Wagemans said, “Wait and see.”

Source: AdWeek.com

3D Ports Frustrating To Some 3DS Developers

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One of the major set of downloadable games scheduled for release on the 3DS is the 3D Classics remakes of classic franchises, like Excitebike. However, the transition has turned out to be a hard one for developers at Nintendo to make.

With a 2D screen, players had to use their imagination for [Xevious] flying above the ground, but on the Nintendo 3DS system, said developer Takao Nakano. We thought we might be able to recreate it using stereoscopic graphics so it looked like it was really floating. That was a bit frustrating. If you look closely, you will probably notice that we actually had [another employee] redo the graphics and programming from scratch.

“It was a big challenge making something that would satisfy fans of the original and provide a fresh surprise on the Nintendo 3DS system,” Nakano said.  Still though, the added depth of 3D gives players something new to think about.

Source: Iwata Asks

Sony Launching Free Digital Magazine

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Future Publishing and Sony have announced that they are retiring FirstPlay as a paid-for digital magazine, with the July 6 episode marked as the last. Instead, a new free digital magazine will come in its place to all UK PSN account holders.

“We went a long way very quickly with FirstPlay and this new phase in our partnership with PlayStation will allow us to take HD video magazine content to the next level,” said Future’s group publisher Simon Maxwell. “Production on the new show is well under way and editorial standards are impeccably high. We’re looking forward to providing SCE UK with top-quality video content for more PlayStation gamers than ever before.”

This is a great content initiative which forms a key part of SCEUK s strategy to reward and engage with our consumers in a more meaningful way, says SCE UK s Marketing Director Alan Duncan.

Ubisoft Targets Young Female Games With Owlient Purchase

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Ubisoft has announced that it will purchase Owlient for an amount they aren’t revealing. Owlient is a successful free-to-play developer with two million active users playing games like the online horse breeding title Howrse.

“It’s a fast growing and profitable company with a very good technology that we can exploit in the rest of the group. What we buy is not only the profit they will make but also the accumulation of know how,” said Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft CEO. “We have three pillars, which are high definition, casual and online games, so we are booting the three pillars so that we can grow in those three types of games and customers. We learn a lot from those different pillars to enrich the others. So what we learn in online we are using in high definition to improve the experience,”

“Joining the Ubisoft team will allow us to accelerate our international business and to expand our expertise and our games to new platforms,” said Owlient CEO Olivier Issaly. “It also lets us integrate our proven online services architecture with Ubisoft s so that we can help grow their brands online. We are proud of what our team has accomplished and confident that joining Ubisoft will allow us to continue that success.”

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Electronic Arts Reportedly Eying Ohai

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Reports are that Electronic Arts has purchased Ohai. While not nearly as prominent as their buyout of PopCap, it’s still an important sign of the way EA regards social gaming.

One of Ohai’s first titles was the vampire MMO City of Eternals, although it was not a major success because Facebook wasn t a great platform for synchronous games at the time. While the company hasn’t reached the heights of Zynga, EA could certainly benefit from games like the upcoming Unicorn Parade.

Source: VentureBeat

Netflix Separates DVD/Streaming Charges, Draws Ire

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Netflix announced that they are altering their payment systems. The company is lowering the prices on the unlimited DVDs, to $7.99 a month for the 1 DVD out at-a-time plan and $11.99 a month for our 2 DVDs out at-a-time plan; streaming costs have been separated from the DVD plan, and will now cost a separate $7.99 a month.

Last November when we launched our $7.99 unlimited streaming plan, DVDs by mail was treated as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan, said VP Marketing Jessie Becker. At the time, we didn t anticipate offering DVD only plans. Since then we have realized that there is still a very large continuing demand for DVDs both from our existing members as well as non-members. Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs. Creating an unlimited DVDs by mail plan (no streaming) at our lowest price ever, $7.99, does make sense and will ensure a long life for our DVDs by mail offering. Reflecting our confidence that DVDs by mail is a long-term business for us, we are also establishing a separate and distinct management team solely focused on DVDs by mail, led by Andy Rendich, our Chief Service and Operations Officer and an 11 year veteran of Netflix.

The move was very unpopular with most Netflix users, with thousands of comments popping up to criticize the price change. The price change seems oriented towards shifting consumers to the streaming options, which is only a fraction of the content what the company offers on DVD.

Source: blog.netflix.com

Sly Cooper Just In Time

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The Sly Cooper has laid dormant for a number of years, but he will be returning in 2012. The stage is set with Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time in this initial stage.

 

Are You An Alpha?

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Find out now if you are an Alpha! With the launch of a Alphas on the SyFy Network, a series of new engagements have been made available on the official website Alpha Powers. Fans can submit videos of ordinary people doing extraordinary things with a chance for their entry to be chosen by Dr. Rosen and featured on the site. An Alpha locator shows on a global map shows a concentration of Alphas by region and type (transducer, hyperkinetic, hyperadrenal, etc.). A personality quiz will assess your hidden Alpha power. Currently there are 26,174 Alphas living in the United States. Are you one of them