Samsung Marketing Spend Overwhelming HTC

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HTC once saw six consecutive months of record revenue in 2011 before the release of the iPhone 4S. Since that time, profits have been declining because of competition with both Apple and Samsung.

Samsung shipped 69.4 million smartphones during the first quarter of 2013, dominating the Android market and good enough for a 33.1 percent share of the global smartphone market. LG was the next-closest Android vendor in Q1 and controlled less than 5 percent of the market worldwide.

Marketing is a huge reason for this discrepancy and is overwhelming its competition with its sales and marketing budget. Samsung spent an estimated $9.3 billion on marketing in 2012 and is believed to of dropped $2.5 billion on sales and marketing in Q1 2013 alone.

Compared to this, HTC spent $130 million last quarter on sales and marketing activities. To put that in perspective, Samsung spent nearly 20 times more than HTC did on marketing, advertising and related activities last quarter.

While HTC recently launched the One and the company hopes that will help turn around its fortunes. However, the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 will probably involve billions spent on marketing, which may overwhelm anything HTC is likely to do.

Source: BGR.com

World Of Warcraft Down Over A Million Subscribers In Early 2013

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World of Warcraft‘s subscriber base has declined 1.3 million subscribers over the first three months of the year. Now down to somewhere above 8 million subscribers, the decline mostly came from East Asia, though there were some losses in Europe and the Americas as well.

“And while we do believe further declines are likely, and we expect to have fewer subscribers a year than we do today, World of Warcraft remains one of the most successful franchises in the history of entertainment,” said Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.

The executive said that the developers at Blizzard are committed to releasing more content for World of Warcraft more frequently in an attempt to retain players and have lapsed players return. “We believe in the long-term value of this franchise and will continue to commit substantial resources to World of Warcraft,” he added.

Source: Polygon.com

Warner Bros. Hires David Haddad

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Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment announced that it has hired David Haddad to be vice president of digital publishing, where he will oversee all of WBIE’s digital titles, including MMO, free-to-play, and MOBA games. He will also be responsible for identifying and evaluating new business opportunities in the games space and will manage virtual merchandise sales, in-game advertising and product placement deals.

“We are making innovative strides in the digital games business and we feel we have found a great leader in David who can build upon our foundation,” said Warner Bros WBIE president Martin Tremblay. “David has excellent experience and knowledge of the digital business world and will lead our broader efforts as we forge new opportunities in the industry.”

“I’m thrilled to join Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment with its strong base of games and rich, diverse brands,” said Haddad. “To make the most of this great opportunity, my focus will be on expanding the company’s impact in the fast growing digital games space.”

Haddad has over 25 years of experience in the industry and was previously the chief operating officer for Activision Blizzard’s Guitar Hero business and chief operating officer for Sierra Online. His experience also includes leadership roles at Liveplanet, Etoys, Mattel and The Walt Disney Company.

Warner Bros. Secures D&D Movie Rights

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Warner Bros. has acquired rights to make a movie based on Dungeons & Dragons. David Leslie Johnson (Wrath Of The Titans, Red Riding Hood) has penned the script to the movie.

The first script for the move was based on the Gary Gygax’s Chainmail system, which was a predecessor to D&D. The film will be produced by The Lego Movie producer Roy Lee and Courtney Solomon (who directed the first Dungeons & Dragons film in 2000) while Alan Zeman is executive producing.

Source: Deadline.com

BlueStacks Launches Microconsole Gamepop

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Bluestacks has announced they will be launching a new gaming console and subscription service called Gamepop. The Android powered console will be free until the end of May, though access to any of the games costs $6.99 per month for the all-you-play gaming service.

“Mobile gaming has been taking off the past few years. BlueStacks’ vision is to bring that same experience to bigger screens,” said BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma. “The all-you-can-eat pricing model for GamePop lets users enjoy a much broader range of games, just as you can watch more movies with Netflix versus the pay-as-you-go model Blockbuster employed.”

“BlueStacks has credibility in the microconsole space that others just don’t have,” added Halfbrick CEO Shainiel Deo. “We’ve been a featured partner in App Player since early on and they’ve delivered on every promise in terms of distribution. GamePop is a great incremental channel for us.”

Wargaming Targets Project Tank Creators

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Wargaming has filed a complaint against Changyou.com Limited and Beijing Gamease Age Digital Technology Co for the similarities between Project Tank and World of Tanks. Not only do they allege they “copied the plot, theme, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, and character of World of Tanks, in addition to copying specific features, items, tanks, and artwork” but Wargaming also asserts that Project Tank has violated one of its patents for multiplayer matchmaking.

“Copying is evidenced by the fact that the designers of Project Tank copied historical inaccuracies found in WoT, each of which does not affect game play, but which was included in WoT to simplify the tank modeling and rendering process,” the complaint reads. “Copying is further evidenced by the fact that the designers of Project Tank copied tanks from WoT that never existed in real life, and which included features original to WoT.”

Changyou is, for its part, denying the allegations.

Source: Polygon

Alice Cosplay Contest Launched By Spicy Horse Games

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Spicy Horse Games announced that it is seeking a cosplayer to appear in the work-in-progress Kickstarter pitch video for Alice: Otherlands. The winner of this contest winner will be flown to Shanghai, China in June of 2013 to appear in a video shoot for the Kickstarter campaign.

The company wants those interested to send an image of themselves dressed as Alice with their name, age, country of origin, contact information, and a brief personal introduction to contact@spicyhorse.com before May 20, 2013.

For more information, visit the Alice: Otherlands Facebook page.

Ouya Raises Another $15 Million

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Ouya has raised $15 million from Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, with Mayfield Fund, NVIDIA, Shasta Ventures, and Occam Partners also contributing. KPCB’s general partner Bing Gordon will be joining Ouya’s board of directors.

“[Gordon] really is a creative genius,” said Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman. “He has a track record of really respecting game creators, which is something that is core to Ouya. And we think makes for a great partnership.”

“We are seeing demand for Ouya literally everywhere in the world,” Uhrman added. “We’re shipping our early backer units to over 110 different countries. We have retail relationships already in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., but there’s a ton of interest in other countries and we want to be smart about how we continue to roll out Ouya and grow. And obviously that takes capital.”

Source: GamesIndustry International

EA Takes A Stand, Won’t Work With Weapon Companies

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Last year, Electronic Arts partnered with weapons makers like the McMillan Group and gun magazine maker Magpul for a charity and cross promotion relating to Medal of Honor: Warfighter. While no money went to EA (it all went to veteran’s charities) EA has made clear it won’t be engaging in a similar partnership this year.

“We won’t do that again,” said EA spokesman Jeff Brown. “The action games we will release this year will not include licensed images of weapons.”

Still, EA will continue using names and likenesses of guns without providing any payment, something that game developers have been doing for year. “We’re telling a story and we have a point of view,” EA’s President of Labels Frank Gibeau. “A book doesn’t pay for saying the word ‘Colt,’ for example.”

Source: Reuters.com