After making its original announcement at this year’s E3, OnLive has released a new update to its Android and iOS app {link no longer active} to bring PC-quality high-definition gameplay to a wide range of smartphones, media players and tablet, including the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and even the Kindle Fire. Available today, the new app will add complete gameplay support for any game offered on the service, which includes some of the richest, most graphically intensive titles available, such as Batman: Arkham City, L.A. Noire, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and more.
For those who’d prefer a more traditional gaming experience, OnLive has produced a new Universal Controller that pairs with tablets and smartphones via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other wireless standards. When combined with an iOS or Android device running the OnLive app, the Universal Controller provides complete dual analog controls, triggers, and action buttons with low-latency performance. The controller can also be used with the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Mac or OnLive’s MicroConsole using a USB dongle. Up to four Universal Controllers can be paired with a single USB transmitter.
Having trouble keeping track of all the TV shows you want to watch? Episode Calendar is here to help. Add and manage your favorite TV shows in your own personal calendar and receive e-mails when your shows air. Keep track of what comes next and check off episodes after you watch them. Check out the guest calendar here {link no longer active} then sign up for an account and start putting together your personal TV-show calendar. Stay connected via iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 or via a desktop application.
Getting in front of the eyeballs of young consumers can often be a hard thing, with the fact that most of them are focused on computers and mobile devices now more that television. One of the simpler and more direct approaches is to simply bring the content to the user – make it easily available on the computer without any preconditions and support the whole thing with sponsorship. Such was the tactic with The Controller: Battlefield 3. We chatted with EA’s director of consumer marketing Michael Herst about bringing the series to life.
[a]list: Give us an overview of The Controller.
Michael Herst: We had an interest in doing something unscripted for the competitive, reality TV space. We’ve done that previous for different games, like with ESPN for Madden Nation for four seasons and we’ve had the Madden Challenge before. In trying to think of something cool for Battlefield and some of our bigger franchises, what we’ve discovered is that watching people play the games is not all that interesting. It doesn’t translate all that well and isn’t what people want to watch. Things that work are conflict and drama and characters; that’s always worked on linear television and that worked on Madden Nation. Playing the games was an interesting as part of the show but there were also parts where you discovered personalities and you picked sides or you don’t like this one guy but that causes you to tune in anyway.
So we thought, “What’s the best way to create quality content?” and we came up with this idea that it would be cool to have a bunch of gamers and non-gamers together for realty television. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we got a group of pros together under the auspices of competing with each other, and wouldn’t it be interesting to throw that curve ball that the competition is something different, like helping someone who doesn’t play games play the game. You’d have to truly work on helping your teammate play. So we figured the twist would move the story along and it would be a fun device for a little while. So that was kind of the thought process: “How could we create something gamers and a regular entertainment audience would think is compelling?” though it was leaning into gamer culture.
[a]list: Something I noticed in the structure of the show; even though the special pro gamer training takes place on a PC, the players are playing on console…
Michael Herst: That had to do with a sponsor. AMD was a partner with GameSpot in the show, so it came in from them. I can’t really speak to the specifics of it, but AMD being involved with the show meant that they were associated with the top of the line PC. The idea was the war room, and up until the finale where the pros get to compete with the noobs, but before that that’s the only time when the pros could get on a play Battlefield 3. It’s not stated explicitly, but it’s a pro rig they’re working with so naturally AMD would be on it.
[a]list: Did the pros really not know that they wouldn’t be the ones playing directly And did it actually take place over multiple days?
Michael Herst: They were not aware it wouldn’t be them. And yes it took place over multiple days. For each day, there was a little bit of shooting.
[a]list: What sort of reception have you gotten to the controller?
Michael Herst: It’s gotten a healthy amount of views. It’s been a great success and hopefully something we can do again.
[a]list: Has it felt like there’s been a definite lift in interest for the series, with Battlefield 3 being as popular as it is?
Michael Herst: Oh certainly. The success of the series is due to the interest in Battlefield. That’s one of the reasons we wanted to launch the show with this franchise. It makes sense and it’s compelling from the a gameplay perspective.
[a]list: How many people have been watching it?
Michael Herst: I don’t have all the stats, but the first episode saw 1.2 million views up to this point, and across all the episodes, it is over 6.5 million views or more. It’s done fairly well and GameSpot is the distribution point, focused on their YouTube and website, and from what I’ve heard they’re happy with it too.
[a]list: Besides gamers, who has been the main audience for The Controller Is it veterans to the series Fans of unscripted TV?
Michael Herst: I think we’re hoping for a mixture. That’s the way it was designed. We’re partnering up with GameSpot on the distribution and promotion, they liked the concept and wanted to make it one of their first forays into that sort of content. The idea was to make it work for gamers, but also make it accessible so that other folks would want to tag along and watch.
[a]list: Do you feel like the production values show that web shows can achieve admirable results compared to traditional television?
Michael Herst: Yeah, absolutely! We were trying to make sure this was a quality and a standard you would see on television and part of that is that is Bunim/Murray Productions, our partners on the production side who have done thousands of hours of real world production. They helped create The Real World and they started the whole thing back in the ’90s. Partnering with them, and trusting us in things we do and teaching us the things we don’t know, went a long way in making this a success for the viewers. And to your point, from a quality standpoint was something we all could be proud of.
[a]list: Do you think it was subconsciously encouraging that everyone, regardless of their background, seemed to like the game and do pretty decently with it?
Michael Herst: Definitely! It was great to see… not trying to sound grandiose… that all sorts of people can learn to play games and that people who like games in general are normal. We hear these stereotypically things around gamers and hopefully what it showed was anyone can game and it’s not hard to pick up and people who play can be from all walks of life and you can emulate them. So I felt like it was a level look at what the world of gamers is like.
[a]list: The stereotype seems particularly unfair to pro-gamers, since their attitude, dedication and make up is more akin to pro-athletes than it does to even typical gamer nerds?
Michael Herst: Yeah, these people are professionals and they have a craft they work on.
[a]list: Love the inclusion of Freddie Wong in the production. Whose idea was that?
Michael Herst: That was one of the things we wanted to do. It was going to be on YouTube and we wanted to be of that culture and platform so doing something with Freddie was great, because he is one of the biggest personalities on the site and he is a gamer and a fan of gaming in general. So having him participate is something we wanted to see happen. We wanted it to feel right for him and… I hate to say it, but make sense for his “brand.” It wouldn’t make sense for him to be a contestant or a host. We wanted to play off his web personality, so he and Brandon are big fans of the game and they collaborated with the Bunim/Murray to grief Johnny in ways that were related to Battlefield, so it makes sense that [the host] would do that and respawn every time. We wanted to acknowledge the community that we know where they’re coming from and what they like about the game. And I think the fit made a lot of sense. It felt right for him.
[a]list: Anything you’d like to add?
Michael Herst: We just want to go out with a bang, and we wanted to make sure as many eyes as possible are on the finale!
Google indicates that the Android Market has seen over 2.56 billion game downloads out of 10 billion downloads in 38 months. Games were the top download category at 25.6 percent, followed by Entertainment at 12.2 percent, Tools at 11.17 percent and Communication at 6.45 percent.
In the category of games, the Arcade & Action section was most popular, representing 39.25 percent of all game downloads, followed by Brain & Puzzle games at 22.08 percent, and then followed by Casual, Cards, and Racing & Sports titles.
South Korea has seen the most Android Market downloads, followed by the U.S., Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Several games, like Fruit Ninja,Fieldrunners HD, Tetris, Can Knockdown 2, Toki Tori and Minecraft, will all be getting discounts as part of the celebration of reaching the 10 billion app download mark.
Mega Man has seen product cancellations over the past year and series head Keiji Inafune leave the company, putting the “Blue Bomber” in a state of limbo. Capcom senior VP Christian Svensson indicates that they’re aware of the angst that fans are feeling, though he had no immediate relief for them in the form of a new Mega Man game.
“Change has been a constant during my six years at Capcom (vastly for the positive) but I want to be crystal clear on this point,” said Svensson. “Mega Man is a key brand for Capcom and will remain so. I don’t have any products we’ve announced publicly that I can point to and say ‘see, I told you’ but there are ‘top men’ (‘top men’ ‘Yes, top men’) within Capcom thinking about the future of the brand and where it’s going. We will have official announcements in due course.”
Scott Steinberg has released volume one of “The Small Business Expert” series. Titled “Eight Ways to Make Your Holiday Marketing Shine,” it is filled with hints, tips and expert advice to help entrepreneurs and business owners successfully tackle the holiday season on any advertising budget.
“Technology continues to transform the world of business through new gadgets, trends and Web-based apps every day,” says strategic consultant Steinberg, who wrote the report. “We’re pleased to provide enterprises of all sizes, including small businesses, with tip sheets, guides and video tutorials that they can use throughout the holidays and beyond to boost sales and customer satisfaction, and drive revenue growth.”
“8 Ways to Make Your Holiday Marketing Shine” can be downloaded for free at asmallbusinessexpert.com.
To celebrate the return of NBA basketball, 2K Sports has announced that they will provide simulations of the Christmas Day match-ups between the Knicks-Celtics, Mavericks-Heat, Lakers-Bulls, Thunder-Magic and Warriors-Clippers in NBA 2K12. Additionally, they will discount the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game to $39.99 and the iPhone and iPad will be offered for the discounted prices of $2.99 and $4.99, respectively.
“It sure feels like Christmas has arrived early here at 2K Sports,” said Jason Argent, vice president of marketing for 2K Sports. “We’re obviously thrilled that NBA basketball is set to return, so we are offering several ways for fans to join us in our excitement.”
Philip Reisberger is Chief Games Officer Bigpoint, a game company that has expanded using free-to-play games on their own web platform. He thinks this is ideal, and that companies like Zynga want to expand outside of their dependance on Facebook.
“Oh they desperately want to,” Reisberger said of Zynga expanding beyond Facebook. “They have plans, they’ve had plans for the last two years. Everyone wants to reduce their dependence on Facebook I think. Eventually it will come, but as some attempts have shown in the past, it’s not as easy to understand the world outside Facebook because it’s a totally different world. That’s why Bigpoint is in a very good position: we’re not just the ones developing, we’ve mastered, to a certain degree, the distribution.”
“For me it’s less the portfolio – I love what Zynga is doing, they really have this iterative innovation,” said Reisberger. “They grow something and then the next thing is a little bit better – they totally understand it – their business sense is quite similar to ours. They have a different basis, though, because we’re outside of Facebook. The 200-250 million monthly actives that they have, that’s say 30-40 per cent of the active Facebook population. Our quarter of a billion registrations we have do not represent 30-40 percent of the internet’s users.”
“So we’re in a bigger market, we’re not relying on a new guy registering on Facebook,” he added. “We have over a thousand media partners who drive traffic, so whenever they venture into new ground, it’s beneficial for us.”
Despite saying this about Zynga’s dependance on Facebook, Reisberger is very positive about the company. “For me, I like what Facebook, Zynga, mobile are doing – they’re educating people to play. What I like a lot is the fact that when we were young the gamer was a guy locked in his attic or bedroom. Now you see people playing everywhere. So I don’t see this peaking, I see it growing, maybe even accelerating because a few years ago we had maybe ten million gamers, now we have a billion gamers. So I think that there’s huge potential. What we really see is that the quality of people’s expectations are really rising.”
Facebook released the memology of its 800 million users. This study looked at the most popular topics and cultural trends of the past year, and while most of it dealt with celebrities or major real world events… one involved the release of a game.
“The launch of the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (mw3) was the big event of November, marking the biggest entertainment launch of all time,” notes Facebook data scientist Jonathan Chang.
Game has announced their exclusive stocking of the Star Wars: The Old Republic Collector’s Edition. Included in the pack are Darth Malgus statue, a metal case, a Journal of Master Gnost-Dural, Old Republic galaxy map, “custom” Security Authentication Key, a music CD and a special Collector’s Edition box.
“Star Wars is one of the biggest entertainment franchises ever, and with so much buzz around the release of The Old Republic, we know the Star Wars community will be wanting to get their hands on the game as soon as it’s out of beta this month,” said Game’s head of U.K. communications Neil Ashurst. “It’s great to see so much enthusiasm and anticipation around Old Republic and we’re happy to be able to offer Game and Gamestation’s Star Wars fans this special edition.”
