Newzoo announced an alternative way of segmenting the games market via the typical four screens fulfilling separate consumer needs, showing cross- and single screen growth opportunities. Find out more in the infographic that incorporates fresh data on 153 million American gamers and their $21.9 billion estimated spending on games in 2012.
Facebook’s IPO was not quite what anyone expected, quickly going from the most watched public offering this year to a lawsuit by shareholders for concealing weakened growth forecasts. Defendants including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Morgan Stanley were cited as hiding “a severe and pronounced reduction” in revenue forecasts during the IPO marketing process.
One of the suits in New York says that lowered business forecasts were “selectively disclosed by defendants to certain preferred investors” and not to the general public. While it was generally known there would be challenges, Facebook shares fell 18.4 percent from the $38 IPO price in the first three days of trading, reducing the value of stock sold in the IPO by more than $2.9 billion.
“The I.P.O. of Facebook was supposed to be Morgan Stanley’s crowning achievement, but it is turning out to be a big embarrassment, raising broader questions from regulators about the I.P.O. process,” notes the New York Times. “When the dust settles, Morgan Stanley could make more than $100 million in fees on the I.P.O. But rival bankers and big investors have complained that Morgan Stanley botched the debut. They contend that the bank set the price too high and sold too many shares to the public.”
“The media are awash in stories about Facebook’s IPO ‘failure’ because the stock price hasn’t skyrocketed and made the buyers incomprehensibly rich. It only has made the original shareholders filthy rich,” said Ad Age’s Jonathan Salem Baskin. “I think every CMO should ruminate on the more nuanced questions about the value of social engagement that the IPO event raises.”
“Facebook’s sole function is engagement. It connects people with one another. Its $3 billion in revenue and $1 billion profit come from advertisers who believe that there must be ways for brands to profit from that engagement. They don’t know how to do it yet. The two hypotheses they’re testing are putting ads around it, and trying to actually host some of it via branded pages interspersed with people pages,” added Baskin. “There’s no evidence that either yields much beyond nice-to-have benefit, and some experimenters (most recently GM) have given up trying, for now. Again, since Facebook makes money either way, I’d take a small piece of such failure and consider my life’s work a success.”
Meanwhile, Facebook is continuing its usual business by adding Angry Birds, tweaking Timeline and adding a new “Summary” section. They’ve announced a branded entertainment deal with Turner’s TBS to promote three- to five-minute comedy “shorts” developed by DumbDumb, Arrested Development co-stars and pals Will Arnett and Jason Bateman’s digital entertainment company.
“In our mind,” stated Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s head of ad sales and VP of global marketing solutions, “we believe that we should capitalize on the social footprint in and around the media content that consumers love and that they consume on Facebook.”
Still the honeymoon might be over for Facebook. “There is a stigma around a broken deal, and Facebook is a broken deal,” Connor Browne, a managing director for Thornburg Investment Management.
Source: Brand Channel
GameTrack reports that Angry Birds accounted for 10 percent of gaming volume in the U.K. in Q1 2012. The mobile hit was the most acquired brand in the UK gaming market in the first quarter, ahead of Call of Duty, FIFA, Mario and Draw Something; apps were only two of the top five most popular brands but accounted for roughly half of total game acquisitions in the U.K. during the quarter.
Furthermore, 37 percent of U.K. residents aged 6 and over play games on any device every week, which is around 21 million people. Physical retail products are played by 26 percent of the U.K. followed by online games with 18 percent and mobile apps with 14 percent.
The most frequent gamers in the U.K. are aged between 6 and 10, with 83 percent playing at least one game every week. It is also the most converged demographic, with 31 percent playing mobile, on consoles and online on a weekly basis.
This Budweiser ad for the UFC has MMA great Anderson Silva facing off against celebrity and Aikido master Steven Seagal. The build up of Silva’s training is great, including a few riffs on famous scenes from popular movies and is ironic since Seagal is Silva’s martial arts trainer in real life.
Double Fine and Ron Gilbert are working on a new game called The Cave. Choose from three heroes and go spelunking finding things like a subterranean amusement park, a medieval castle, and a nuclear-tipped ICBM.
The realm of video game trailers is often too self-serious and predictable, but Techland is turning that on it’s ear with their Mad Riders trailer. They even mock their own reverse-slow-mo trick used in Dead Island‘s debut trailer.
This past weekend at the NASCAR Nationwide Series, the GameStop car was sponsored by Hitman Absolution. Racer Joey Lagono was also be the official in-race reporter for ESPN, all while donning an Agent 47-inspired, fire-repellent suit.
Minecraft is available for mobile, PC and now console formats, giving it plenty of potential for sales. Mojang founder Markus Persson and business developer Daniel Kaplan put a fairly precise number on the amount of sales.
“Minecraft has now sold six million copies. That’s the original PC version only, and doesn’t count Android, iOS or XBLA sales,” said Persson. “Counting all formats, we should be at around nine million copies sold, I’d guess ”
“Yeah a little bit more. Maybe 9.2,” Kaplan replied.
Source: Twitter
E3 is adjusting to a changing landscape in games, adding elements to the show floor for social and mobile companies like Zynga and Gree. Rob Dyer, vice president of partner publishing at Zynga, said that the reason why he left Sony Computer Entertainment America was because of changes he saw at a trade show.
“E3 is in a bit of transition. It’s no longer just about consoles. It’s about games and having an opportunity to talk to the people making those games, whether on the web or mobile. It is where we need to be, so we will have a presence,” said Dyer. “The reason we’re there is to find games we can use to court the core gamer. We really want those kinds of games on the Zynga platform. You go hunting where the ducks are.”
“The thing that struck me last year and influenced my decision to leave Sony was the Tokyo Game Show. In the past, it was a very big deal about what was coming out on consoles,” he added. “ Last year, there were maybe three or four games outside of Sony’s booth that were console games. Everything else was social or mobile — and that was the canary in the coalmine for me. I believe that over time, you’re going to see the same thing occur at E3. You’re going to see more free to play games on the show floor. Interestingly, you might wonder why companies like Zynga would even want to come to a hardcore-focused games event like E3 . . . but that’s precisely it: Zynga wants to start attracting core gamers.”
Source: Gamasutra
Reports are that Jagex will be closing down its free-to-play strategy title 8Realms after it only reached 10 percent of what was needed in revenue to be sustainable. The company is currently examining who will be let go as a result of the closure.
“Jagex has always been committed to creating fun and compelling games,” said Jagex’s Daniel Clough. “During the 8Realms beta it has become clear that the game doesn’t meet our high expectations for success and we are therefore channeling our focus on other exciting opportunities in the pipeline.”
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
