Kim Sa-rang, a former Miss Korea, has announced that she will help promote DK Online: The Legend of Dragon Knights. She modeled for a DK Online photoshoot and commercial, and there are further plans for Kim to lend her voice as an NPC in the game.
Source: Kotaku
Kinect Star Wars is probably not going to fulfill the dreams of hardcore gamers for dynamic and fast-paced action, but it does look like it could be great fun for the family. Play as a rancor, participate in a pod race and have fun with another player!
Assassin’s Creed III is an anticipated entry in the franchise, but there are many questions about its gameplay, story and setting that players might have. Here, Assassin’s Creed III creative director Alex Hutchinson lays out a lot of general details about the game, talking about everything from hunting, to the story and why the game isn’t set in Japan.
The Secret World is a unique sort of MMO with its setting, having modern trappings with the undercurrent of secret societies and conspiracy theories. What is also unique is the character you play, since you can learn any of the 500 abilities and use them in any combination.
Written and directed by Benny & Rafi Fine (The Fine Brothers), this interactive YouTube game lets fans play as Don Draper from Mad Men in an 8-bit inspired adventure and help him complete all 3 tasks to save the company! There are 3 different endings based on the order you complete the tasks. Play the game multiple times to see all possible endings.
Reports are that Apple has started blocking apps that access unique device identifiers (UDIDs). With increasing scrutiny from lawmakers over privacy issues, this will prevent the main method that app developers track their customers, leading to a great deal of consternation on their part.
“Everyone’s scrambling to get something into place,” said Victor Rubba, CEO of Fluik. “We’re trying to be proactive and we’ve already moved to an alternative scheme.”
“This is definitely happening. In the next month or two, this is going to have an impact on all ad networks and apps using advertising,” said Playhaven CEO Andy Yang. “Everybody’s trying to make their own choices about what to use instead.”
Source: TechCrunch
The possibility of asynchronous social features for Wasteland 2 resulted in a small torrent of panic and criticism in the midst of an otherwise positive phenomenon. Brian Fargo, CEO of inXile, addressed the issue of incorporating the feature and crowd-sourced games after the fact in his blog.
“Creating fan funded projects with input and transparency is certainly a new experience for me, and I would not have it any other way,” wrote Fargo. “I think it is important to note that we still want to be creative and throw ideas out for debate, which is why I couch most of my details with caveats. What I have discovered is that there are some four-letter words with extra letters like ‘Social’ which get very emotional responses. Social means casual to some people and Wasteland 2 is NOT a casual game. I will certainly be careful in my word selection as I want new ideas to be discussed without being railroaded for bad word choice. Also please keep in mind that we don’t start full production until the funding hits in about a month. Until then, the forums are helping us hone in on the most important tenets.”
“And to repeat… this is an old-school RPG and nothing is going to make us deviate from that experience but there could be some options to consider that make it more fun,” he continued. “In fact, the reason we are not doing multi-player is because it would have affected the narrative. Keep in mind that this game is pre funded, so I don’t have to use clever buzzwords to get attention or convince people to buy it. My thoughts on additions are pure in the sense of whether it would make it more fun to play. Period.”
“I clearly made a mistake in throwing out an idea before I communicated a cohesive vision document on the overall game. At two million in funding we will be doing the top things everyone wants anyway: a larger world and more content, more character dialog, more graphics across the board, and more audio. I should not have thrown out any fringe ideas this early on . . . but live and learn,” Fargo noted, “The mod-kit is a whole other beast which I have let people know we are considering, but it would not make launch as I want to keep our development focus on the content we plan to ship.”
“I do like sharing my experience with my friends when I play a game—be it conversation or leaderboards. I would be curious to see my friend’s stats when playing: how many kills he had, ammo used, his level and other various non-spoiling information. However, I think the best way to handle new concept is to put them out on the forum for people to discuss. We will also try to communicate the work required for any potential new ideas so people understand impact. We want to spend our energy on the parts that people will enjoy the most no matter what. My statement is still true that I would rather make a smaller group ecstatic than worry about a bigger audience. All of you backers are the core group I care about the most, and I will continue to post and read from the forums to sync us up,” he concluded.
Rob Lowe, Nintendo’s U.K. marketing manager will leave the company to join BBC Worldwide as marketing director. He had been with Nintendo for eight years, and leaves not soon after marketing director and assistant general manager Dawn Paine departed the company in February after a decade.
“Rob has been a valuable member of the U.K. marketing team and whilst we are sad to see him go, we are proud to watch a member of our Nintendo family start a new chapter in their career,” offered David Yarnton, general manager of Nintendo U.K.”Rob leaves behind him a talented and exceptional team who will continue to deliver some of the industry’s strongest and most creative campaigns as we embark on an exciting year ahead.”
The recent Zynga acquisition of OMGPOP could have happened years ago in 2008, according to founder Charles Forman. As the site morphed from a focus on dating to games, Forman orchestrated his own exit.
“I guess I grew up,” said Forman. “I wasn’t pushed out. I wanted to leave in the most graceful way possible. There was no press story so I guess I did it right.”
Forman’s OMGPOP stock is now worth around $22 million. “I’m going to start angel investing. And, after [PictureLife], I might become a teacher,” he said. “I want to redistribute the karma.”
Source: Business Insider
TrialPay started offering Facebook Credits or virtual goods for watching video ads last year. Now, the company is teaming up with video ad/analytics platform TubeMogul to bring real-time bidding to social video for the first time.
“It’s the flip of the Hulu model or TV model. Normally, I don’t want to watch advertising, but I put up with it so I can actually get my content,” said TrialPay CEO and co-founder Alex Rampell. “But, in our world of social gaming and very low-cost digital content, I want more advertising because as I engage with the ad to learn more about the brand, I am actually rewarded . . . in a virtual currency that I care about.”
Facebook has about 200 million social game players every month and Rampell asserts that demand for video is growing from various brands. “[With] TubeMogul . . . we’re able to reach all of these users when they’re playing a game and figure out the inventory we show them,” Rampell said.
One of the major goals of this partnership is to make campaigns on Facebook scalable, adding better targeting and more visibility to which platforms and games they are going to. “Social video, to date, has been a complete black box,” said TubeMogul CEO and co-founder Brett Wilson. “What we did is we made that inventory real-time biddable, which makes it transparent.”
TubeMogul’s dashboard will allow advertisers to choose from about 200 games on Facebook and target super specific audiences using both first- and third-party data. This allows advertisers to see exactly where their ads are running and performance metrics for their campaigns.
Rampell explained that unlike companies that serve pre-roll video elsewhere on the Web, TrialPay doesn’t charge advertisers on a CPM basis. Also, the ads are only seen by those who self-select into the process—presumably those with an actual interest in the content, an intent to buy and are engaged in the content.
A survey conducted by KN Dimestore, TrialPay and TubeMogul’s private beta revealed that the in-game ads lifted several brand metrics. According to the companies, brand favorability was about 14 percent higher among those exposed to the social video ads, with awareness up about 22 percent. Also, purchase intent increased 4 percent and message association was about 16 percent higher.
While average completion rates for the social video units vary by category and length, videos 60 seconds or longer see completions at about 86 percent and longer videos average 61 percent.
Source: AdWeek.com
