Sony Xperia Play Not Getting Ice Cream Sandwich

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Android 4.0, named “Ice Cream Sandwich”, is releasing soon with new features like face unlock, voice search and better browsing. While Sony will update their phones Xperia arc, Xperia pro and Xperia ray with the latest update for Android, they revealed that the gaming oriented Xperia Play will not receive an update.

“In regards to Xperia Play, after extensive in house testing with our developer teams and working with our partners, we have concluded that a consistent and stable experience, particularly with gaming, cannot be guaranteed for this smartphone on Ice Cream Sandwich – therefore, we will not make the Android 4.0 upgrade available for Xperia Play,” said Sony on their mobile blog.

“This decision was also verified when we received similar feedback from the developer community; both experienced developers and advanced users, along with game content providers following our ICS beta ROM for unlocked Xperia Play smartphones,” they added. “Our priority has and always will be, to provide the best possible user experience on Xperia smartphones. In this instance the ICS upgrade would have compromised stability, where we look to ensure a quality gaming experience with games optimized and developed for Xperia Play.”

Source: blogs.sonymobile.com

Facebook ‘Feed Gaming’ Changes Social Game Engagement

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Facebook has unveiled a new way for social game publishers to help push out their products. The social network will let developers put out versions of their games for their timelines and newsfeeds.

“This involves publishing a story on behalf of a user which has a flash object attached,” notes Facebook. “When a user’s friends see these attachments, they will be able to click to play them inline. This opens up some interesting scenarios for a small embeddable version of your game to be shown to a user’s friends, at the end of which you can encourage them to click through to your canvas app.”

Users can post a high score on a level, replay their gameplay and show their friends how to participate and even create a mini-game for players to engage in. Angry Birds, Bubble Witch Saga, Idle Worship and Tetris Battle all have working examples right now.

Making “feed gaming” work for you involves creating an Open Graphic object, publishing the story on behalf of the user and tracking story engagement. To find out more, check out Developers.facebook.com/docs/feed-gaming.

Trip Hawkins Resigns As CEO Of Digital Chocolate

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Trip Hawkins has confirmed that he is stepping down from his role as CEO of Digital Chocolate. This comes after reports that 180 employees were being laid off, that studios in Bothell, Washington and St. Petersburg are being closed, and the company’s number of MAU (monthly active users) slipped to 6 million down from a peak of 29.8 million MAU in December 2010

“I am transitioning now into a consulting and advisory relationship with Digital Chocolate,” wrote Hawkins. “For its next stage of growth, Digital Chocolate is narrowing its focus and it made sense to get more streamlined. I will remain involved in digital media and games and be available for opportunities including mentoring, consulting, teaching, speaking and writing.”

Source: blog.digitalchocolate.com

Zynga Employee Defends Free-To-Play Gaming

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Two Zynga Mobile employees answered frank questions from the Reddit community about everything from the company’s reputation to game cloning. One employee going by the handle ycoseth had a particularly pointed response to a question likening free-to-play gaming to gambling and calling it evil.

“This question pre-supposes that F2P is inherently bad, let me provide a counter argument: When I download a F2P game, I get to, if nothing else, try out that game for some period of time to see if I like the core mechanics,” noted ycoseth. “Cheaper than renting a game, and less of a commitment than something like GameFly. It’s because of F2P games I was able to find an FPS I liked (Super MNC), how many $60 games would I have to buy before I found one that clicked with me ”

“I know I’ve bought $60 games, played them for a little bit and then it’s done,” he added. “I’ve been, as a kid, in positions where my friends all bought a box game I was too poor to afford it, thus leaving me out while my friends played the new hotness. That simply doesn’t happen when my little brother and his friends play LoL [League of Legends]: the kid who wants to spend a ton of money can, the guy who doesn’t want to doesn’t, and it’s very egalitarian.”

“Also, the gaming media tends to look at F2P through the lens of an upper-middle class person with a fair amount of disposable income,” he noted. “Some of Zynga’s bigger markets are in places that are relatively low income (Middle East, South Asia, etc) where gaming is hard to access in the first place, and expensive if you can find it. Zynga (and other F2P games) are offering AAA gaming to these markets on the model that whales will subsidize free players and that’s great.”

“The notion that F2P is ‘evil’ is silly, especially given how many other markets work like this. When you want to be an artist, do you go to Michael’s and ask for the Artist Special It’s $200, includes a spread of paints, brushes, canvases, markers, oils, etc. Oh, you don’t You mean you just go and buy piece-by-piece the stuff you want or need when you want or need it That’s F2P gaming,” he concluded.

Source: Reddit.com

Facebook Looking To Make Smartphone Again

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Facebook is reportedly hiring iPhone engineers with expertise in both software and hardware to work on a smartphone codenamed Buffy. Those with knowledge of the project said that Facebook is partnering with HTC to release a Facebook phone in 2013.

“Mark [Zuckerberg] is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms,” said a Facebook employee.

Source: bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Crowd Funding Gets A Bible, And Its Evangelists Speak Up

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Scott Steinberg

The recently published book The Crowdfunding Bible is a reminder of just how much of an impact digital publishing is having on the content business. Seemingly every content business. The timeliness of the book itself is indicative of it.

Authored by Scott Steinberg in collaboration with industry veterans Jon Kimmich and Russel DeMaria, it covers the surge in crowd funded game projects. It’s a topic that, at least to many in the game industry, reached the level of phenomenon just a few short months ago. It was when well-known game maker Tim Schafer turned to Kickstarter for his studio’s next big project, Double Fine Adventure. The campaign closed in March of this year in spectacular fashion, raising eight times more than it had hoped with over $3.3 million in funding.

That seemed to wake up the game industry to crowd sourcing as a viable way to raise capital for product development. At least one major publisher, EA, decided to throw its support behind it. And game players quickly caught on to yet another way indie developers empowered by digital distribution could serve their specific tastes. Three months later, there’s a comprehensive book on the topic, available digitally, and free to read. (Just go to www.crowdfundingguides.com.)

The [a]ilst daily had a chance to sit down with Scott Steinberg and Jon Kimmich to discuss their views on this transformative trend — yet another one — affecting the games business, and highlight major takeaways from their book for game makers, players and major publishers.

Tell me really briefly about the genesis of this book and how it brought the two of you, along with Russel DeMaria, together.

Scott Steinberg: Obviously crowd funding has been exploding in popularity, especially in the last several months with the success of games like Wasteland 2, Double Fine’s Adventure, of course other success like the Pebble E-Paper Watch and Shadowrun Returns returns. It was becoming obvious there was a growing need for more education and best practices surrounding this space. There is perilously little of it available for creators both in gaming and general consumer product spaces. Russel DeMaria and I had been kicking around the idea for a book. He specifically had just completed a successful Kickstarter project himself with [High Score 3rd Edition]. We saw this was a trend that was going to continue to explode in popularity. Jon and I got to talking as well and we said wouldn’t it be great if there were more resources.

What do you think is behind this seemingly sudden surge in interest and support for crowd funding

Scott Steinberg: Media attention. The obvious thing is that the crowd funding movement has been growing and gaining in popularity over the past several years. It wasn’t until you had well known creators and designers like Tim Schafer who were bringing back popular properties that suddenly media attention catalyzed around these breakout success stories. Like any other industry when you start to have a number of breakout hits that you can latch on to, suddenly it consolidates industry attention.

Jon Kimmich: One of the things to keep in mind about crowd funding is that fundamentally the exercise that you’re engaging in is really an exercise in consumer marketing. It took people a while to figure out what this crowd funding thing is, how does it work and what type of skills and knowledge and tools can I take from other, more traditional things that have been done in marketing and utilize them and marshal them. The original inclination was less focus on commercial things and more indie. It’s evolved over time, and along with that the kind of project people can do with it has changed. As soon as it broke the million dollar barrier, I think that also started to get peoples’ attention, thinking wow I can actually get useful money out of this. 

Scott Steinberg: Jon brings up a salient point in that the perceived limit that projects had to be under a hundred thousand dollars and often times in the tens of thousands of dollars was utterly shattered. Obviously the Pebble watch continued that tradition. What’s happened is even major players in the space are now looking at it as a viable alternative to VC.

What’s behind that shattered barrier, as you put it, to what people could suddenly raise through crowd funding?

Scott Steinberg: What I would say is that it’s effectively right moment, right time, where we reached that tipping point in terms of public attention, media awareness, willingness to take a plunge. And of course the tacit endorsement when you have a brand name celebrity, at least in the gaming industry, like Tim Schafer who is willing to turn to it very publicly as a potential source of funding, and not only succeeded but do it spectacularly. Suddenly you have a case study where thousands of developers out there who have their own following, as well as hopefuls looking to launch new IP into the market, waking up and saying, wait a minute, against all odds, here’s a creator making the types of games he loves to make who was suddenly able to defy the odds. Literally it’s the stuff Cinderella stories are made of.

Jon Kimmich: We did an interview with the design director of Obama’s 2008 campaign. When he was done, he decided he wanted to prepare this big, coffee table book. He told us the story of how he went to publisher A and publisher B and publisher C to try and sell his idea. The thing I remember from my interview with him was that after he went to all these publishers, he came to the conclusion that publishers suck! They wanted to take his vision for the book and turn it into this thing that he didn’t want. He talked to one of the Kickstarter guys, and he said why don’t you go and put it up on our site and see if you raise money. He did and it was wildly more successful than he thought it was going to be. I think he raised around $100,000.

Jon Kimmich

Is there a pattern with what sort of game developers are turning to crowd sourced funding, and is it better suited to some products more than others?

Jon Kimmich: Initially there was this tendency for some folks to look at Kickstarter as this place where people funding projects were older, middle-aged men with disposable income who wanted to get back the nostalgia of games they played when they were young. And they had more money than common sense. I think that there are a number of projects we’ve seen funded successfully recently argue against that. You have something like The Banner Saga which raised three quarters of a million dollars. The folks behind that game aren’t anybody you’ve ever heard of, and they had no notoriety in games up until this point. Republique is also an original IP and it’s a new team. In terms of what kind of products make sense, I think it comes down to, number one, who’s the target audience you want to pitch the game to, and do you think there’s enough people out there to fund it at the level you’re trying to get funding. And then, how do you reach and target your message to them where they hang out and consume information about the kind of games they want to play, and what’s your plan to go out and deliver that message to them repeatedly so that over time they’ll make a decision that it’s something they want.

Scott Steinberg: The only thing I’d add to that is that the kind of games that most succeed are those that have either a strong existing fan following, that are tremendously unique, and of course that have wide cross-generational and cross-interest appeal that are also fairly reasonable when it comes to funding goals. Ultimately painting a picture in viewers’ minds as to just how unique the product is and what makes it so special and the marketplace, and why this is the right time to make it, and that you’re the right team to do the job.

Jon Kimmich: There was a campaign for a game called Takedown done by a guy named Christian Allen. They had no game to show. There was no game footage for their pitch. What they were really good at, and I think they were really smart about, was to define exactly what kind of game they were making, and if you played previous games of this sort then this was a game you would want to play because nobody’s making that kind of game right now. Their pitch was all about we’re going to make a game that’s very much like the original Rainbow Six, very tactical, thinking man’s shooter. There’s an audience out there for that kind of game that’s underserved.  So they knew what their pitch was and how to target their messaging. They knew where their folks were hanging out on the internet, which web sites, and they raised a quarter of a million dollars. It wasn’t Double Fine level investment but they raised what they needed to make the game.

When it comes to raising awareness for a crowd funded project, what are the most important tactics or assets from a PR-marketing standpoint?

Scott Steinberg: I would argue that you are your greatest asset. Essentially you have to be a spokesperson and face for your movement. You have to have a plan in place before day one that incorporates a running spate and variety of activities that runs through the campaign’s duration. It would be a gross mistake to think that launch was the end for a specific campaign. Really what you need to do is have a game plan in place, have all of your assets in place prior to launch, know who you’re speaking to, who your audience is, how to best reach them, what vehicles and channels you have and what levers you can pull in terms of promotional assets and activities. And then realize that the goal is not to create a massive groundswell at a single point in time, but rather running buzz and constant conversation that keeps you top of mind. Ultimately it’s a mix of elements that are going to help you succeed. It’s not just social media, it’s not just press mentions. Any single activity may cause a spike in awareness and donation but at the end of the day you need to keep your ear to the ground. You need to be in constant contact with backers, you need to constantly be working the channels. Really not a day should pass by when outreach activities aren’t happening, whether you’re posting a bunch of updates or new screenshots or videos of the work in progress.

Jon Kimmich: An interesting thing I’ve heard from almost every team that I’ve talked to was they did not allocate enough of their time to all of this outreach activity. A lot of times it fell to the project lead or somebody who was pretty critical to getting the project done. That meant that when they’re doing outreach, they were getting pulled away from the project. You really need to have somebody who’s sole purpose during the campaign is to manage this outreach, and they should not be critical to the project.

In terms of assets, what’s most important to have, is it the fiction, is it a slick trailer, is it a prototype?

Jon Kimmich: The first thing I would say is that the bar is going to be raised over time. In my experience, generally what we see in terms of what people looked at first, is whatever happens to be on the top of the web page. That means it’s usually a video. You want that video to be compelling, but I’m not sure I’d use the word slick. What you want for people to come to your project and believe is that you’re capable of doing it and it’s going to deliver on what you’re promising. If you come in super slick but there isn’t a believable personality behind this, then I’m not sure that necessarily serves you well. Part of what people are looking at is, who are the people behind this project and do I believe they can actually do what they’re saying they can do.

Scott Steinberg: You have to double down on presentation. I don’t care what your budget is, one place you don’t cut is in terms of production value in that presentation. Keep in mind that people are very visual creatures and we tend to accept what we see. Most people are going to assign a worth to your project and a perceived value based on what they interpret from the video or the screen shots. You don’t go into the store looking for the crappy looking game. If you’re going to ask them to dip into their wallets, you need to have something very powerful to show. At the same time you need to tell a compelling story. Perhaps the most effective one I’ve ever seen is not a game. Amanda Palmer, who used to be on a major label, recently did a video for her book, CD and tour. She was asking for $100,000 and raised roughly over $700,000. In her video she appears holding a series of poster boards. She doesn’t speak a single word, effectively tells her story strictly through text. By the end of the video not only have you fallen in love with her, but you’ve fallen in love with the idea of what she’s trying to do. She shows very little actual material. You don’t hear a great deal of the soundtrack that she’s trying to add to the album, but really what you’re buying into is her creative vision.

Also sounds like she took a page out of Dylan, which I’m sure helped. You mentioned rewards and their importance. Is there a right formula or percentage of funding to put towards rewards for backers?

Jon Kimmich: The main thing to keep in mind is what are these rewards are actually going to cost you in terms of fulfillment and in terms of time and how much it takes away from your project. It’s the little things, like the cost of international shipping. Again, doing your homework on what your rewards are going to cost is important. And give yourself a certain amount of flexibility for doing crazy stuff, things that people haven’t done before. Some of them are going to work, some of them are not going to work, and that’s okay. If things aren’t working, you can adjust your campaign.

Scott Steinberg: The rewards are going to be ultimately designed around the type of project you’re offering and what materials are possible and what opportunities and what merchandise you have access to. What you want to do is offer a variety of compelling rewards, and it’s important to keep in mind that every single pricing tier should offer value. It’s not a charity fundraiser. You have to offer something of value in exchange for the pledge. At the same time it’s important to have variety that’s fairly evenly spaced out at all levels, starting at impulse buy and moving on up to special one-of-a-kind opportunities that are offered at a high price point. As Jon pointed out, throughout the campaign you’ll have to monitor which best connect with fans. Actually backers will oftentimes tell you which rewards they prefer. With Brian Fargo and Wasteland 2, the rewards they most expected to monetize were actually not selling that well, and so they went back and revisited them to add new bonuses, add new incentives, or add new rewards at different points of the campaign to find what clicked. It was iterative.

Let’s talk about marketing a finished project. Is that something a developer should be thinking about even as they’re trying to get their game crowd funded?

Jon Kimmich: Keep in mind the people that pledged for your product are in all likelihood going to be your most loyal supporters when it comes time to sell the product more broadly. Part of being successful is maintaining your existing relationship with those backers, and doing it past the point when the product launches.

Scott Steinberg: The consumers who are backers are brand evangelists already. That’s the beauty of crowd funding, it’s that from day not only are you generating awareness and doing promotional activity, you’re actually actively engaging fans and getting them emotionally connected to the project and its eventual outcome. Most of the activity is going to be at the social and grassroots level to make people aware that the product exists. At the same time it also has to be coupled with considerable PR activity, because what happens once the media covers it, they’ll be on to the next big product or project and consider it yesterday’s news. If you’re not shipping until eight months after you’ve raised awareness for your campaign, then you need to undertake activities designed in educating consumers that the product is indeed now available. As far as paid advertising solutions, it may be acquisition-led campaigns that are more effective. Even offering community members affiliate marketing, offering incentive that if you tell your friends about this we’ll give them a free weekend to play it, or we’ll give you ten bucks if they buy in. Because these products already have awareness and advocacy, really what you’re trying to do is tell consumers that they’re available. And a lot of it is an effort to create a sense of prestige around the product as well. Because effectively what you’re saying is that, in most cases creators build projects, they announce it and they hope it finds an audience. In this case, it’s the public who said you’re damn skippy we want this thing, so having a game by gamers for gamers can add cache and get people excited about it.

Jon Kimmich: I’ve occasionally heard folks say I’ve found all these backers for my campaign so I’m not going to do any more marketing on my product. I’ll just rely on them. I don’t think that’s necessarily an accurate view either.

Scott Steinberg: You absolutely have to do PR and marketing. You just have to be selective about your opportunities. What you’re not trying to do at that point is necessarily go broad and generate awareness. Really it’s an education and activation effort.

What do you think the future holds for crowd funding for games?

Scott Steinberg: We’re already hearing stories of fatigue because so many great opportunities have been launched back to back to back to back. There’s some attrition there in that, hey look, just because I contributed to one campaign doesn’t mean I want to hear about 15 of them by next Tuesday. Now what’s the maximum limit for that, when do we hit that point of saturation. It’s hard to say because what is technically being done here is, once upon a time you wanted to ship a game you had to go to a small group of very wealthy, influential individuals who decide what the masses want. In this case you’re flipping it out on its head and letting the masses decide what they want for themselves, which doesn’t necessarily align with corporate America’s vision. Crowd funding isn’t going to be right for all types of products or projects. What it is going to do is give birth to thousands of new games and ideas. I really think that people don’t grasp just how big the movement is going to become.

Jon Kimmich: If you look at the world of traditional games publishing, I’m not sure if this is necessarily going to have a huge impact on big budget triple-A console games any time soon. If you added up all of the money that’s been spent on crowd funded games across every crowd funding site in history to-date, it probably still wouldn’t add up to the amount it took to build one Halo or one Call of Duty. But if you’re a publisher who focuses more on digital distribution or smaller titles or indie games, then this can have a very material impact on your business.

Follow the authors for more tidbits from “The Crowdfunding Bible”:

Scott Steinberg

www.akeynotespeaker.com

Twitter: @gadgetexpert

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Jon Kimmich

www.softwareilluminati.com

Twitter: @jonkimmich

Transforming A Brand Into A Game

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Peter Della Penna

When you ask someone who grew up on the action cartoons of the ’80s which was their favorite, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll say Transformers. Iconic as a toy brand, now a mega success as a movie, there are still a number of people who feel the greatest connection to the original cartoon series, (known as Generation One, and abbreviated to G1). High Moon Studios saw an opportunity with the franchise outside of just adapting the movies into video games and have run with it. We talked with High Moon Studios President Peter Della Penna and Marketing Manager Greg Agius about the brand and their latest game Transformers: Fall of Cybertron.

How did you get a chance to do a game based on an original take on Transformers in the first place?

Peter Della Penna: It was pretty obvious to us and Activision, that our studio capabilities and sensibilities were a great fit for the Transformers license. Also, it was perfect timing for us to develop a Transformers game that was not based on the film property and did not interfere with the movie franchise release schedule. The natural place for us to go was back to our childhood roots in G1 and start telling the story of Transformers before they came to earth.

What are ways that you look to bring in fans of the classic cartoon series? Do you try and tap veteran voice actors?

Greg Agius: Authenticity is our biggest strength at High Moon Studios. You walk around the studio and you see G1 fans everywhere. I’d say that bleeds through to the game in every way. The look and the feel all are heavily inspired by G1. But everything is updated so that it feels right and up to date with the look of a modern game. Landing original G1 voices like Peter Cullen to voice Optimus Prime and Gregg Berger to do Grimlock is another key. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron reboots your childhood and makes it cool again!

What games do you try to emulate as far as being successful with a classic brand? Do you try and learn something from the recent Batman and Spider-Man games?

Peter Della Penna: Game wise I would say both Batman and Spider-Man are great references. Especially the Batman Arkham series where everything you do in those games drives the player back to the core of what makes Batman so cool.  For us, it’s about transformation and the variety of awesome characters in the Transformers lore.

Talk to me about the reveal trailer for the game and what you thought the important messages you were trying to convey were (prescience of certain characters, style of the graphics, etc.)

Greg Agius: We wanted Transformers fans and gamers to take a fresh look at our game. For me, we needed to communicate that Fall of Cybertron is an adult oriented game that stands totally apart from anything related to the films. So the team set out to break every rule we could think of for a Transformers trailer: we had zero voiceover, we destroyed main characters, we made the story come to you, and we picked a song that is totally groundbreaking for this franchise. When fans started posting, “attention . . . this is how you do Transformers!” I knew we had done things right. The style and look is all very in line with what gamers are currently playing.

Greg Agius

How do you balance aesthetic considerations for these games? The Transformers are evocative of G1, but they’re not cel-shaded. Was it conscious to make it like the early cartoon but have it be a little grittier?

Peter Della Penna: Visuals are very important to gamers. If it doesn’t look good many won’t even try the gameplay. So, yes, our style is evocative of G1 but not a reproduction of it. By design we intended to have a gritty, nostalgic sensibility.

What went into bringing in the Dinobots for Fall of Cybertron?

Greg Agius: Getting the Dinobots in Transformers: Fall of Cybertron was a labor of love that has paid off handsomely. This game is new canon for Hasbro, and we are working with them to write lore that will stand for future storylines for this multi-billion dollar brand. Our team passionately fought to keep the Dinobots in the lore so that we can have them in our game. And why not You can’t find characters more unique than this! Of course we had to work with them to find a plausible creation story that Transformers fans would accept. We found some inspiration from the old U.K. comics and it provided some excellent ground that players will explore in our story. Playing as Grimlock is fantastic, you just feel super powerful!

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Like Transformers Looking forward to High Moon’s latest Join the discussion on Facebook.

Social/Mobile MMOs Tale Dark Turn

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Mobile MMOs and social games are both nascent fields, but the upside for both is very high. Still, both types of games have mostly remained separate, but Spacetime Studios has changed all that with Dark Legends. The game combines MMO trappings with social elements to make for a new breed of game, all in a sexy, more violent package. We talked with Spacetime Studios CEO Gary Gattis about his company’s third mobile MMO.

Give a general overview of the Dark Legends project.

It’s a another evolution in mobile MMOs. With Pocket Legends, we took MMO mechanics and put them into mobiles. With Star Legends, we took environmental gameplay and added cross platform play. With Dark Legends, we took some social mechanics and incorporated them as something that would encourage players to come back and engage beyond merely wanting to play more. There’s energy that recharges over times and there’s also a progress bar; what it does is integrate it with a 3D scene and it shows where you are in the story. Essentially we’ve got a strong string of storytelling in the product. We’ve got a strong story and we’ve got actions where we play a cut scene and players unlock content and are rewarded for reaching those moments. They pace the user through the content.

The thing that struck me the most about this new game was the incorporation of social gaming mechanics.

It was a challenge to work that out, but I think it’s done well. It monetizes and retains better than Pocket Legends or Star Legends and it’s a new way to play mobile MMOs together so we’re happy with it and we’re working on another game and we’re iterating on it.

They can buy energy and when they’re out, we send them back to town where there’s free PvP and that’s also where all the services are and the vendors, so it’s pretty easily paced between spending their energy points and socializing.

Why did you decide to make the move to add more social game mechanics in Dark Legends?

We like to innovate, and we weren’t really content with re-skinning Pocket Legends; we wanted to push the boundaries of what mobile multiplayer is. It’s interesting to consider the retention mechanics of these social games and try to work them in.

There’s almost certainly cross over between the type of people playing social games and playing your games.

That’s exactly right. Our games are mid-core and there are a lot of people playing mid-core games. They can’t play many hours per day, but they’re still passionate and were getting more exposure with them. We got a good promotion with the demographic and it’s an effort on our part to broaden the mobile base. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t exist – things are changing in the mobile sphere.

Dark Legends seems to be a much more mature game in its content than Star Legends and Pocket legends with violence, blood and the like. Was that a purposeful move by SpaceTime?

Yeah, very much. It was a done as much as part of our own desires as to contrast with our other projects. With Pocket Legends, we want to go after the young teen user base. We also noticed a lot of adults played our games and we wanted to appeal to an adult audience and make it sexier than before.

We positioned Pocket Legends with a younger audience and when we came to Dark Legends, we wanted to make it the most violent game we’ve played on mobile. Were’ mid-core hardcore guys so this one really came from our heart.

Stay tuned for part 2 soon!

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As Seen On YouTube

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Three of YouTube’s biggest personalities were at the [a]list summit in Los Angeles, where they talked about how they’ve attracted an audience in the millions mostly by hosting shows where they show and tell video games. For “YouTubers” Olga Kay, Toby Turner a.k.a. Tobuscus, and Adam Montoya, better known as SeaNanners, what started out largely as sharing their passion for a pastime has turned into a fulltime job. For game companies, it’s become a new way to promote products.

Recently, the three collaborated with several other YouTube personalities on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade NEXT promotion. It was a one-of-a-kind program. Weekly shows hosted by each YouTube star were streamed live through TwitchTV then posted on each of their channels. The shows were produced in a template drawn more from MTV or Nickelodeon than anything on YouTube. The first game the program debuted, “Trials Evolution,” went on to set the day-one sales record for Xbox LIVE. Yesterday the program wrapped up with SeaNanners debuting Microsoft’s big get, “Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition.”

[a]list daily took the opportunity to talk to them about they’ve found themselves at the center of a novel new way to build audiences for games.

How do you work with game makers and publishers on creating content for your channels, do you seek them out or are those opportunities now regularly incoming?

Tobuscus: They usually come to me. I’ve never really approached a game company, yet. I have done stuff on my own to promote games because I play games regardless.

SeaNanners: For me, typically when people approach us — me— it’s through a management company. There’s some sort of liaison between the publisher and myself. I tend to like that better because then the conversation works better in that it’s not constant emails, constant phone calls. I find it to be a better case scenario because it’s very concise. It’s, “We need you to do X, Y and Z. Can you do this, are you available “ It’s nice to have somebody be your go-between. I’d much rather have somebody manage that conversation. In general, it’s very difficult to maintain that conversation when you’re juggling all these different things.

Olga Kay: Companies usually come to me directly and I send them to my manager.

Tobuscus: Sometimes I’m like that, but sometimes if they’re pretty easygoing, if they like your comedy and they want you, they’ll be like, “Do your thing.” That’s probably the easiest for me. But if they need structure then I totally understand.

SeaNanners: If somebody already knows what you do, it’s so much easier. Most people see YouTube as cat video central. They don’t actually see it as a viable way to advertise something. But it is because there are for gaming, specifically, plenty of people who watch our gaming channels who would like to see something we’re interested in.

From left to right, “YouTubers” Tobuscus, Olga Kay and SeaNanners

It sounds like all three of you have representation of some sort, you just sometimes choose not to use it.

Tobuscus: There are several companies that will approach all of us, and you develop a relationship with them over time. And if you really like someone . . .

SeaNanners: Cough — Ayzenberg — cough.

Tobuscus: (Laughs.) Yeah, I like working with my friends.

What sort of content most resonates with your audience?

Tobuscus: Funny content.

SeaNanners: Yeah.

Tobuscus: That’s all that matters. If you’re talking, if you can be free, if it’s you in your element, that’s what it’s all about.

SeaNanners: It sounds so very childlike but I assure you it’s not. That sort of engaging your audience is best case scenario. People want to laugh. Although it may seem from an outside perspective like you’re just talking into a microphone, and how is that viable, how is that good for our brand

Tobuscus: It’s like you’re playing a game with a friend. It’s like they want to watch their friend play a game. You’re hanging out. It’s comfortable.

Is that your mindset when you’re doing these videos?

Tobuscus: For gameplay commentary. For sketches, I want to make something that makes me laugh. If I laugh, someone else is laughing somewhere.

SeaNanners: Funny or not, it should be entertaining.

What you make is very different than usual sponsored content. How do you balance that need to have some product messaging in what you create with wanting to be entertaining, or do you just create what you want?

SeaNanners: It helps to know what the objectives are. In general, it’s nice to be given objectives and then ask, how can I creatively push whatever it may be I think the reason it’s successful is because we’re all individual personalities. We aren’t the company. We aren’t the businessmen. We’re just like the people who watch our content. It comes down to trying to balance the objective and trying to balance our voice. There are ways that you can integrate that. There are ways you can maybe play a game you don’t enjoy or talk about a movie you haven’t seen. When it comes down to it, companies should know what they’re purchasing. If you purchase a sports car, don’t go into the mountains. Don’t come to me if you want to push the new Hanna Montana movie, I may not be the best person to do so.

Olga Kay: But I could be because my audience is perfect.

SeaNanners: It’s not about views, it’s not about audience size, it’s about something that makes sense. It doesn’t make sense to come to me with a brand that’s that different than my own. From a brand perspective, it helps to know what you’re buying. It helps to know who you’re working with to advertise your product. For instance if you simply want something that’s fun and engaging, Toby’s the guy to talk to. If it comes down to Toby wanting to give you PR bullet points, it probably doesn’t make much sense. Though he could probably make that funny, to be honest.

Tobuscus: Recently I had a sponsorship for a telecomm company in Canada. They said we love the script but you need to say this, this and this. Pretty much give the spiel that they’d give you over the phone. I was like, how am I going to do this People will obviously know it’s sponsored. So I added another character that was an employee on the phone with me. It worked perfectly. The episode is just as funny as it would’ve been otherwise.

SeaNanners: You can’t buy my voice. It’s not about me telling my audience what they should do, how they should think and what they should like. If I play a game and I’m having fun, they may be like, hey maybe I should buy that game. It’s about being organic, being transparent.

Based on your experience, how did this massive audience for game content develop on YouTube?

Tobuscus: I feel like everybody wants that big brother experience — I used to play games with my big brother and we would do this stuff back and forth. We’d be talking, telling stories, cracking jokes. It was fun. Games are fun with other people. If they don’t have somebody they have a relationship with for something like that, I feel like they would see this and say this is awesome. Besides that everybody loves video games but not everybody’s great. They want to maybe have SeaNanners be playing and kill 70 people and never die once.

SeaNanners: I wish I would’ve had YouTube when I was younger. I wanted that platform and it wasn’t there. People initially go to YouTube to get assistance with whatever it is they like. Now it’s like they come for the food and they stay for the atmosphere, which is the personalities.

What do you do to grow your audience?

Tobuscus: In the beginning, this is years ago, I was scrambling. I was trying to grow this audience of nothing. I’d go and post comments on people’s videos. Then I’m like, this isn’t what I want to do. Now I don’t do anything, I just make stuff that I like.

Olga Kay: And he’s really funny. For me, I did so many different things. I used to go to YouTube gatherings where I would meet everybody and tell them, this is what I do and if you like it check it out

Tobuscus: Collabs.

Olga Kay: Yeah, collaborating with people on YouTube that already have an audience or you’re both building an audience. They like him and they watch me from his video, and they come to my channel and like what I’m doing, and they decide to stay.

Tobuscus: To grow the initial audience is pretty tough. If you’re with somebody else who’s pretty big, and you’re both likeable and have a similar sense of humor, the audience will migrate over.

Olga Kay: Also for the gaming community it’s important to play new games. People search for new games all the time and they find you as someone who’s playing it, and they’ll stick around. If you have the right personality.

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[a]List Game Marketing Summit: ‘Building Desire’

BY

Introduction from Chris Younger, Principal/Director of Strategy, and Julian Hollingshead, VP Strategy and Client Service for the Ayzenberg Group. A Morgan Freeman sound-alike provided narration for a brief video about content marketing to lead into the first panel.

The consumer courtship, the interaction you have with your consumers from the moment they first encounter your product or brand. This summit is about building desire, which is about content. This can mean video, or events, or many other things like alternate reality games, sponsorships, or online forums. There are 5 questions to consider when deciding what content to create to build desire: What, why, how, when and where. The summit will explore all of those questions with a variety of experts.

Greenlighting Content: What Should You Create, and Why

The panel was moderated by Steve Fowler from the Ayzenberg Group, included Brad Hisey, Director of Marketing for Nexon; Ryan Crosby, Sr. Director of Consumer Marketing for Activision/Blizzard; and Mitch Powers, Director of Global Brand Management for THQ.

The importance of a goal for your content was underscored by Ryan Crosby, because that guides the type of content you create and how it’s expressed. The story is also at the core of the content, according to Brad Hisey, and needs to be considered throughout the process. How do you get management to sign off on a big expense that’s crucial to creating your content Crosby says you focus on the whole program and put the expense into the context, showing how it will create the intensity of desire that you’re looking for.  Mitch Powers said that while a big budget is good, a limited budget can help stimulate creativity as you try to do more with less. Brad Hisey noted that he takes a much more boring approach, looking at his spreadsheet and allocating money precisely between content creation and placement of the content. Discussing dealing with a powerful developer like Bungie, Crosby said that spending time with them is very important to fostering understanding and buy-in for the content you want to create. One of the dangers as a content idea moves through the process is that the idea gets watered down and loses its punch; getting help from management is one way to avoid this. In all cases, learn from mistakes and strive to improve with each new product.

The Content Creators video, featuring Joey Jones, Director and Co-founder of Shadedbox. What’s changed in content creation The tools that are available have become very sophisticated.

Building Desire with Earned and Owned Media: How Do You Engage People

This panel was moderated by Steve Bastien, Director of Interactive and Transmedia for the Ayzenberg Group. Participants were Laura Naviaux, VP of Global Sales for Sony Online Entertainment; Ryan Schneider, Director of Brand Development for Insomniac Games; Ed Lin, Director of Brand Marketing for Warner Bros.; and Rebecca Markarian, Director of Social and Emerging Media for the Ayzenberg Group.

Content distribution and the pacing of release is a complex question with so many options available. How do you make sure people find content Ed Lin talked about Mortal Kombat as an example of content they needed to distribute, spending $2 million to create content that they ended up selling, working with Machinima. Laura Naviaux noted that they don’t make those sorts of decisions without having all the stakeholders at the table. Ryan Schneider underscored the importance of planning to make sure that execution is good. Pacing of content release was the next issue covered; Laura Naviaux talked about studying metrics to see how content is being received, and using that information to adjust their release schedule. Of course, that is for an MMO where the product operates continuously; Ed Lin noted that for Mortal Kombat they planned out the campaign ahead of time.

Rebecca Markarian said that they are constantly touching their audience and their brands, adjusting continuously depending on what they are seeing. Laura Naviaux pointed out that for Planetside 2 they are planning to put out information much later than for other campaigns. Ed Lin talked about how they debated restarting their Mortal Kombat social presence, which required the courage to give up some 65,0000 fans . . . and now they have 2.9 million after the restart.

Steve Bastien asked how it’s possible to activate the users to help get content distributed. Ed Lin said he hates user-generated content; he prefers to keep control of the process. Community unlocking is one technique used in DC Universe Online, as Laura Naviaux noted, where you get a group of fans to cooperate towards unlocking desired content. Rebecca Markarian agreed that giving fans the chance to “get their name in lights” is a useful technique.

Should development get more say in the distribution of content Yes, said Ryan Schneider; is that even a question Ed Lin agreed, noting that often PR is the only team that has a say in where content goes. It’s hard work to create great content, Schneider said. Who gets the content first It depends, said Lin. Their goal is always the top PR location globally to get an exclusive. Coordination between locations is important to maximize impact in a small window of time, noted Naviaux.

The Content Creators video, featuring Jace Hall, Executive Producer of “V” television series and longtime video game writer/producer, talked about how content needs to make an emotional connection with the viewers. If you start with “what is the emotion we’re trying to elicit in the audience,” you’ll be very successful, says Hall.

Bringing Brands to YouTube

This panel of YouTube stars was moderated by Seth Hendrix, Head of Original Content for the Ayzenberg Group. The panel consisted of Toby Turner, a.k.a. ‘Tobuscus’; Adam Montoya, a.k.a. ‘SeaNanners’; and Olga Kay. YouTube has evolved from a “cats and babies” site to a new Hollywood . . . only 80 percent”cats and babies.” How do consumers find video in the massive amounts pouring onto the site One way is to partner with YouTube creators who have already built an audience.

How did they get started Adam Montoya enjoys playing games for a living; Olga Kay ran away from the circus where she was a juggler and got into sketch comedy on YouTube; Toby Turner started out attending school to be a dentist, but got into making videos that looked like commercials, and eventually decided to specialize in “quantity over quality, and it’s really paid off.”

Adam Montoya believes that as people watch his videos, it becomes a sort of reality televsion and a shared experience, based on the common liking for a game. Toby Turner’s Assassin’s Creed trailer ended up getting more views than the actual trailer, and he attributes it to putting in a catchy song with a popular theme. Olga Kay has over 60 million views to date, and she keeps it fresh by listening to conversations to figure out what people are talking about.

How do these YouTube stars keep their brands organic when they get hired to work for a brand Adam Montoya says he tries to keep it  real, and work with brands he likes; if you try to force the peg, it won’t play well. Toby Turner notes that if they script it for you, it never works.  But he feels that the real key is making sure the content is funny, whether or not he really uses the brand in question. Olga Kay writes a sketch comedy around a product and tries to connect with the audience as well as the brand, but it’s tough when you don’t use the brand on an everyday basis.

YouTube differs from TV by giving you instant feedback, and the YouTube stars track that very closely and respond. Your like to dislike ratio is an important indicator, said Toby Turner. Olga Kay has five different YouTube channels and is thinking of starting a sixth channel. It’s because she has very different things she’s interested in, and the audiences don’t overlap that much. Adam Montoya noted that gaming is just out of control right now, and the audiences have grown amazingly since 2009 when he started.

Do they reach out to brands or wait to be approached Olga Kay does a series of videos about a brand and has the brands approach her on more than one occasion. Toby Turner tried to create a sketch for Good Earth Coffee, but they weren’t interested. His literal trailers, on the other hand, have been very successful; his Ubisoft videos last year for E3 got 25 million views.

The Content Creators video, featuring Chris Cowan, Creative Director and Co-founder of Thousand Pounds Action Company and Mike Chaves, Commercial Director. He makes films based on nerd culture, and he thinks the Internet has become a huge stepping stone for artists because of the instant feedback. It’s a perfect avenue for trial and error, and opens up opportunities for those who engage and create content. Mike Chaves feels the key is being open and being flexible, and that’s how you can create something awesome.

Keynote Speech

The Keynote Speaker was Seamus Blackley, President of Innovative Leisure, and one of the creators of the Xbox, among many other things. As a game developer he’s not really sure of what to say to marketers, but his eclectic career has helped him learn about many different things. He’d be terrified to be marketing right now during the vast changes hitting the industry. We’re seeing a sea change in the way people see our products, Blackley said; something really magical is happening. Games have changed from being an outside phenomenon to being core to legitimate culture. The Toyota Prius interface is a video game, and Blackley sees it as a cultural victory.

These principles of game design and interaction have become important in places we weren’t expecting . . . like marketing. Consumers expect to be part of the game. They don’t want to be communicated to, they want to be communicated with, said Blackley. Minecraft is a tool that enables the audience to have a dialog with the creator, and that’s important to its success. People don’t want to be told what’s cool; they can figure that out for themselves.

Engaging people and making them part of the dialog can be a very important part of the business, and one that can generate a lot of revenue. It’s powerful, and new, and hard to predict. You may get it wrong, but that’s almost as good as getting right, if you are flexible enough to change what you’re doing. It’s a time to be experimental and try a lot of things, as long as we don’t forget that we’re here to entertain the audience. Twice in our history the business has been killed nearly dead when we forget about entertaining the audience. We should remember that there are tremendous opportunities ahead of the industry.

Companies like Zynga and ngmoco have created a whole new class of consumers who now feel they have permission to be gamers, and to say that they are gamers. They’ve also given them a huge amount of rehashed content, some of which isn’t very good. This is awesome if you think you can make quality games.