CCP Raises $20 Million To Market Dust 514

CCP Games has raised $20 million in new funding to promote the release of Dust 514 on the PS3. The plan is to not try and take on franchises like Call of Duty and Battlefield directly, instead taking a long-term approach to its marketing campaign.

CCP noted that both Dust and Eve Online fit with the company’s strategy of building games where “the players become the content in the end” instead of some finite amount of story content. The company doesn’t have any immediate plans to go public, but CMO David Reid says the money “allows us is to do some of the things you need to do for IPO preparedness,” such as building greater redundancy into its computer systems, so that it’s ready to go public when and if the time is right.

Source: Techcrunch

TERA Lawsuit Settled

En Masse Entertainment has settled with NCsoft over that company’s lawsuit relating to TERA. Originally brought about when some NCsoft employees left for TERA developer Bluehole, the ex-employees were found guilty of wrongdoing but Bluehole was acquitted of any charges.

“We are happy to have this distraction behind us,” said Yong Taek Bae, Corporate Development Director for En Masse. “We appreciate the support from all those who have believed in us. Our priority has been and always will be our fans and community. TERA will continue to thrive and provide a great player experience and value to existing and new gamers alike.”

Find out more about the TERA marketing campaign in this interview.

Gabby Douglas May Be Golden Child For Endorsements

American Gabby Douglas will see a huge windfall from her recent two gold medals from the London Olympics. Nicknamed the “Flying Squirrel” and having literally come out of nowhere to both make the team and win the gold, sponsors are scrambling to lock her up.

Cereal maker Kellogg, a U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor, got the first crack at it putting Douglas’s smiling face on Corn Flakes boxes. This happened on Friday just hours after she had claimed the Olympic all-round title, gymnastics’ biggest prize.

“We’re fickle, but right now she is absolutely the story,” said Bill Sutton, a former-vice president of marketing for the NBA and head of the sports and entertainment management program at the University of South Florida. “Her athletic ability, her age, the event gymnastics, the number of people who watch gymnastics, the high women’s audience, the fact she is a role model for young women… She’s awesome, it’s perfect.”

Social media marketing software Wildfire says that Douglas has seen a 378 percent growth in page likes over the last week. Four of the five most recorded Olympic moments on Thursday on the video service TiVo were of Douglas’s winning her biggest prize and only Michael Phelps winning his 20th Olympic medal, denied her complete domination coming in at number four.

Twitter followers for Douglas has also increased from 200,000 to nearly 400,000 overnight. “She’s probably one of the world’s most recognizable athletes at this point so her potential for endorsements is obviously very strong,” said Neal Pilson, head of media consulting firm Pilson Communications. “Clearly she’s an extraordinarily interesting, attractive, fun young lady and I think she’s going to have a lot of proposals to choose from.”

Douglas’s earning potential could be between $5 million and $10 million over the next four-year Olympic cycle. “The gold medal alone doesn’t get you to first base in marketing – it’s the persona that goes with it,” said Lynn Lashbrook, a sports agent. “I can’t think of another person in this category: female, young, articulate, great smile, this is unique. This will be off the charts.”

Douglas will probably have a very short amount of time to capitalize on her new found fame. Four years ago, Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson and Alicia Sacramone were the anchors of the U.S. team, but they all failed to earn a spot for London and their fifteen minutes of fame were done.

“I think she will get a lot of endorsements but it will be short-lived,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice-president of research at Horizon Media. “She’s got everything going for her as a product endorser. She’s got the qualities Madison Avenue look for and there has been a very long history of Olympic athletes working as product endorsers.”

“But these things are not evergreen. You don’t see Mark Spitz doing ads anymore,” he added. “There could be a 12-year-old out there somewhere right now, who is a young phenom, the Gabby Douglas of 2016.”

Source: Reuters

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 Multiplayer Reveal

Whatever reservations people might have over Call of Duty these days, the multiplayer is still by far the most popular for an online console FPS on the planet. All the accelerated madness that is a Call of Duty deathmatch is here with fancy new gadgets set to The Crystal Method’s Play for Real.

 

Tag Olympic Gold

Use Shazam in the U.S. to tune in and tag Olympic moments on NBC. Starting with the Opening Ceremony right through to the Closing Ceremony, you’ll be able to use your Shazam App anytime during the broadcast on NBC to experience more of the London 2012 Games.

Whether you’re a die-hard Olympic fan or casual viewer — we’ve made it easy for you to get the information you want most from the Games.

  • Keep up with the schedule of events
  • Learn more about the athletes through competitor bios, news and photos
  • Get up-to-the-minute results on all events
  • Keep track of the medal tally
  • Take part in interactive viewer polls
  • Check-in and join in the social conversation
  • Download the NBC Olympics apps

To stay up to date and get the latest news and stats tag as often as you like during the Games, plus get in the conversation with us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ {links no longer active} and share your favorite moments.

If you don’t already have the latest version of Shazam on your phone, be sure to download it here on iTunes App Store and Google Play {links no longer active}.

 

Zynga Sees Departure Of John Schappert

Zynga has confirmed that COO John Schappert has left the company a week after his game related duties were handed to Chief Mobile Officer David Ko and Executive Vice President Steve Chiang. An SEC filing says that Schappert has also left Zynga’s board.

“We can confirm that John Schappert has left Zynga and its Board of Directors effective immediately,” said Zynga CEO Mark Pincus. “John has made significant contributions to the games industry throughout his career and we appreciate all that he has done for Zynga. John leaves as a friend of the company and we wish him all the best.”

Source: Fortune {link no longer active}

Steam Expanding Beyond Game Software

Valve has announced that it will be expanding offerings for Steam beyond game downloads on September 5. The software offerings will likely include creativity and productivity, with Steamworks features built in, such as automatic updating and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud included as an option.

“The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games,” said Mark Richardson at Valve. “They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests.”

YouTube App Yanked From iOS 6

In yet another indication that Google and Apple’s relationship is deteriorating, Apple’s iOS 6 (Beta 4) no longer includes the YouTube app that had been on the device since June 2007. It is unclear whether Apple opted not to renew its license or whether Google ended the arrangement that put the YouTube app on every iOS device; Google will likely offer up an iOS YouTube app of their own regardless.

“Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store,” said Apple in a statement.

“We are working with Apple to ensure we have the best possible YouTube experience for iOS users,” added Google.

Source: InformationWeek