Nintendo Joins The Console Fray At Comic Con

BY

Nintendo has announced that they will join their next-gen console manufacturing rivals Microsoft and Sony by offering hands-on with the Wii U at Comic-Con International in San Diego this weekend. The Wii U and a variety of games that include unreleased titles will be available for hands-on at Nintendo’s booth on the Comic-Con show floor, and in the Nintendo Gaming Lounge at the San Diego Marriott Marquis and Marina hotel near the convention center.  Sony and Microsoft announced similar plans, putting their still-to-be-released consoles Xbox One and PlayStation 4 out for play at the massive convention.

Nintendo’s booth will feature Pikmin 3 prominently, with a number of consoles set up to showcase the game. The Nintendo Gaming Lounge will feature a much larger selection of games, and will be open to the general public instead of just Comic-Con attendees.

Playable titles at the lounge include Disney Infinity, Bayonetta 2, Sonic Lost World and Super Mario 3D World, among many others. At both locations, Nintendo will host events celebrating the Year of Luigi and the release of Platinum Games’ The Wonderful 101. There will also be a Pokemon themed area in the gaming lounge to promote the upcoming Pokémon X and Y games.

Nintendo is fighting to overcome a slow start for Wii U and gain momentum this holiday, even as Sony and Microsoft prepare to release their powerhouse next-gen machines. Nintendo has traditionally looked to innovations in game play and its stable of strong IP over hardware horsepower when it comes to selling consoles. With Wii U, it seems to be making a concerted effort to put the new system and anticipated upcoming titles under players’ thumbs. Nintendo’s decision to open their gaming lounge to the general public mirrors their E3-timed Best Buy campaign, where they allowed Best Buy customers to play new and unreleased games at select stores across the country at the same time game industry professionals were getting their first look at the games at E3.

Source: Polygon

Click Shopping Comes To Online Videos

BY

A new startup called Cinematique is trying to bring online shopping to online videos using their platform MTEVideo. Cinematique’s platform shows small dots over specific items featured in online videos, which can then be tapped or clicked to bring up an overlay with more information. After the video is over, users will then be able to tap the Cinematique icon at the bottom of the screen to bring up even more information about items in the video, with the potential to then take the user to an e-commerce site.

Cinematique videos are able to be embedded into other sites similar to the way YouTube allows sharing. The technology also collects analytical data such as what actions users took and what items were selected in a given video. The platform also allows for content management  in what’s being shown as overlays for items, meaning product availability, pricing and other information can be updated.

The overlays in the video have obvious advertising applications, but they can also be used for enhanced viewing functions such as added filmmaker commentary or behind-the-scenes information. Cinematique’s technology shows online video has the potential to become a much more powerful way than television to deliver viewable content, whether branded or not.

Source: TechCrunch

‘Ultra Street Fighter IV’ Update Revealed

BY

Street Fighter IV is back with another update, this time in the form of Ultra Street Fighter IV. The update can be bought at full price for $40 or upgraded from Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition Ver. 2012 for $20. The update will feature five new characters, six new stages, new modes and new balancing based on professional player feedback.

Top Players In Mobile For June 2013

BY

Editor’s note: Newzoo and Distimo have released monthly mobile game data for June 2013, listing top worldwide games and publishers for iOS App Store and Google Play. Newzoo’s Peter Warman contributes his analysis.

Google revenues from Android game apps continues to slowly close in on what Apple is making. Looking at global game revenues for June 2013 in their respective app stores, Google Play now stands at 41 percent of revenues compared to the iOS App Store. A year ago, Google revenues were only about 19 percent of what Apple was making. On downloads Google Play leads iOS in most countries except the US and Japan. In Western Europe, growth of Google Play in terms of both revenues and downloads has accelerated significantly over the past few months.

Again, the top five publishers in terms of revenues for June has seen a dramatic change. Supercell is back at number one. Its return is largely due to the game maker’s launch of a fully localized version of Clash of Clans in Japan, which released June 17. It immediately boosted its revenues, which we observed to be t by a factor of five.

Mojang is the only new entry in the list, still powered on by Minecraft Pocket Edition and entering the chart at number 16.  Mojang is one of only two publishers on this month’s chart, with LOCOJOY as the other. Zynga dropped four places from May to settle at number 12, though it still has six games remaining in the top 200 games.

Source: Newzoo and Distimo. Rankings based on gross sales.

Candy Crush Saga from King.com is the new best performing iOS game. Supercell’s Clash of Clans climbed from the third to the second position, while GungHo Online Entertainment’s Puzzle & Dragons dropped from first in May to third place for June. Supercell claims a second spot in the top five games with Hay Day maintaining fourth place from May.

In the chart’s biggest jump, Minecraft Pocket Edition jumped eight places to place fifth. Modern War is also performing well, climbing four places to sixth. The next biggest climber is Big Fish Casino, which moved up three positions to eighth place. EA’s The Simpsons: Tapped Out continues to place multiple SKUs on the chart, although both dipped. The game’s Canadian version dropping from seven to 11, and the US version dropping from 14 to place last among June’s top 20. There is only one new entry in this month’s chart, Fast & Furious 6, entered the chart at number 15.

Source: Newzoo and Distimo. Rankings based on gross sales.

Like the iOS App Store, Google’s Android Playstore saw a lot of changes in the top five publishers. Korea-based CJ E&M was the top grossing publisher in June, jumping from fourth place in May. The company replaced Line Corporation at the top, which dropped to second position. Mobage is the only non-Asian company on the list, placing third. It’s followed by GungHo Online Entertainment and COLOPL Inc., both Japan-based game makers.

There are three new entries in the list, Ateam Inc., Electronic Arts and Social Quantum, with Social Quantum as the highest new entry at number 16.

Worth noting is that there is only one company in this month’s top 20 publishers list that has only one product in the top 200 grossing games. It’s WeMade Entertainment, and its lone game is on the top Google apps chart at number six (see chart below). In comparison, the number one Google Play publisher on the chart, CJ E&M, has five games in the top 200.

Source: Newzoo and Distimo. Rankings based on gross sales.

Similar to last month, the top five best performing mobile games in terms of revenue in the Google Playstore has dramatically changed. Puzzle & Dragons is still the best performer, while Candy Crush Saga jumped from fourth to the second place. Line Wind Runner saw the month’s biggest drop, falling from second to eighth place.

Conversely, the chart’s biggest jumpers are Social Quantum’s game Megapolis, which jumped from 19 to place eighth, and Kabam’s The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth, which moved up from last place in the top 20 in May to enter the top 10 this month. There are four new entries on the list, with MARVEL War of Heroes debuting highest at number 12.

Source: Newzoo and Distimo. Rankings based on gross sales.

For full reports, visit Newzoo Global Game Markets Reports.

About the Author

Peter Warman is CEO and co-founder of Newzoo, the games market research and consulting firm servicing clients across all game business models and regions.

Sources:

 

Getting Developers To #1 In The App Store

BY

Scopely is a well-funded mobile gaming startup with a wide range of talent, and the company is both producing its own games and publishing games for other developers. CEO Walter Driver spoke with [a]list daily recently to discuss the company’s growth and its strategies for marketing in an increasingly crowded mobile gaming market.

Scopely CEO Walter Driver

Scopely’s been quite successful at getting games discovered. Rocket Jump, a team in New Zealand Scopely started working with towards the end of 2012 is a case in point.

“When we released their game Mini Golf Matchup,” said Driver, “It was the number one app on the iPhone in 29 countries within ten hours of launch, which was incredible.”

Driver believes that Scopely can find the right developers and the right products to create more such successes.

“We believe that there are a lot of game studios out there that are capable of creating really compelling products, but they’re going to need assistance in distribution technology and monetization funds to compete at the highest levels,” said Driver.

As he puts it, Scopely is trying to create “an exclusive network for the best independent developers where we can provide them with world class distribution and monetization expertise, as well as a technology platform that scales and allows them to get their product to market faster.”

Scopely is working with developers such as Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions, which is relatively new to mobile, as well as companies like Big Cave that won Apple’s Showpiece Game of the Year Award in 2012. Developers are looking for ways to get mobile products discovered, and Scopely’s audience growth and technology platform is appealing.

“We’ve been hearing from hundreds of developers from across the world over the course of this year,” Driver noted.

Of course, it’s not as easy as just putting a game into the App Store, even if you have a large audience. Driver explained what Scopely offers to developers.

“There’s really three parts of what we do for our developers,” he said. “One, we provide a server-side infrastructure platform that enables them to get to market faster. We have an API for all kinds of social functions that’s very well optimized already, and can help them develop much faster. Then, if you’re seeing 10,000 requests a second, Scopely can handle that size of audience.”

Creating a large audience for a new game isn’t just a matter of showing it to players of your current games.

“We’re always looking at innovative paid marketing channels,” Driver said. “It’s a very competitive landscape. But we also believe that you’re not going to build a transformational company by buying your users one at a time. Especially not in an area that there’s so much competition that any market that might be there might evaporate quickly, because it works for other developers as well. So we spend a lot more time on building products that people want to talk about and share with their friends. Mini Golf received over 130,000 reviews in the first eight days after it launched. It’s one of the most reviewed apps in the history of the App Store in the first week. These are the kind of products that elicit a strong response from people who say ‘play me in this game.’ That drives a much more sustainable degree of installs than paid banner ads, for example.”

As with other mobile developers, tablets are an important market for Scopely.

“The growth trajectory of the iPad specifically and the penetration that we’re seeing there is mind boggling in how fast it’s growing,” Driver said. “It’s one of the most exciting platforms for game developers in a really long time.”

Driver says that tablets have “significantly different play patterns than phones,” noting that “people tend to be playing tablet games when they’re committed to a recreation session for more than just a few minutes, so it lends itself to much more immersive experiences than you might be engaged with on your phone.” Driver said the bottom line for Scopely is that “both platforms are hugely exciting, and tablets offer great monetization potential as well because of that increase in engagement.”

Scopely has a broad range of expertise on its management team from a wide variety of companies and industries. The inference is that Scopely may branch out into other areas.

“It’s an astute observation that we have people from backgrounds like social product design, ad tech, and the video entertainment industry,” Driver said. “We can bring the knowledge of how to compete on a business standpoint or from a distribution standpoint or a monetization standpoint, bringing big brands like Vitamin Water or Starbucks to the table.”

The growth in mobile will continue strongly in the near future, Scopely believes.

“In the next 12-18 months there’s going to be really rapid growth in the smartphone market,” Driver said, “But it’s going to be primarily in developing and emerging economy. From a monetization standpoint those markets are not as mature. I think folks that are innovative in how to generate revenue from users in the developing world are going to do very well.”

PlayStation 4 Hands-On At Comic Con

BY

Sony’s joining the party Microsoft and Nintendo have already started, allowing consumers the chance to get hands-on with next-gen games. More than 100,000 attendees are expected for the upcoming San Diego Comic Con, and they will be able to go by Sony’s booth (#301) and try out a variety of games for the PlayStation 4, as well as a number of PS3 and PS Vita games.

The PS4 games available for trial at the booth include Knack, Drive Club, and Octodad: Dadliest Catch. Consumers will also be able to try eagerly awaited PS3 titles such as Beyond: Two Souls, Diablo III, and Gran Turismo 8. Sony also noted several panels and signings related to Sony games, including a panel on the art of video games.

Source: Sony blog

Companies Vie For Minecraft In-Game Ads

BY

Startup company Adventurize has developed a product that would let companies advertise to the more than 10 million users who play Mojang’s adventure-building game Minecraft. The product, now in open beta, will run in the chat window of the game and serve up text advertisements during play. Adventurize joins several other companies with similar products, such as AdCraft and Project Wonderful.

Adventurize’s program runs on the popular server software Bukkit that allows for plug-ins the same way the single-player game allows for mods. The company is trying to help advertisers reach Minecraft players (often with ads for public Minecraft servers) as well as help server owners generate some ad revenue to offset server costs. Adventurize’s software lets companies pay for the text ads on a per-day rate. By contrast, Adcraft’s ad program, which has been in beta since February, charges advertisers per click. Project Wonderful, which claims more than 22 million ad impressions so far, uses a day rate.

All of this advertising activity is not connected to or authorized by Mojang, since both public and private Minecraft servers are not run by the game maker. Displaying ads to players who paid $30 for a game may not go over well. So far Mojang has not commented on the issue, and there have been no signs of major complaints over advertising among the Minecraft player community. For now, it looks like in-game advertising will get a chance to get a foothold in Minecraft.

Source: GigaOM

‘Sharknado’ Creates Tidal Wave Across Twitter

BY

Sharknado, Syfy’s latest guilty pleasure for the B-movie crowd, hit social media last week like, quite frankly, a swirling tornado of bloodthirsty sharks.

The show debuted at 9 p.m. EST last Thursday night. By 10:58 p.m., it peaked at over 5,000 tweets per minute according to Fox News. That’s an impressive nearly 80 tweets per second. That’s nowhere close to the record of more than 5,000 tweets per second set after Obama’s second presidential election win, but still a huge trending topic by the social network’s standards.

“It took a long time, and it was a lot of work from marketing and our press people to get people to understand that we know that you know that we know, that we want you to know that we know what we’re doing,” said Thomas Vitale, Syfy’s executive vice-president of programming.

It could have been because of this learning curve that previous SyFy movies in the same vein as to Sharknado, such as Sharktopus or Arachnoquake never managed to really capture the same amount of public attention. Vitale points to another possible factor – the fact that even a few years ago, social media didn’t have the power to make or break a movie.

“Now, it drives engagement”the median viewer age for Sharknado (46.8) was the network’s lowest for a movie since 2011’s Zombie Apocalypse, a feat that a network spokesperson attributes to Twitter”and helps the network gauge not just how many people are talking but what exactly they’re talking about and when.”

The combination of a ridiculous yet self-aware premise, visual effects that put Snakes on a Plane on par with Life of Pi, and its cast of D-list stars proved to be the perfect ingredients for Twitter.  The interest it captured ranged from a cult following, which the movie seemed to quickly acquire thanks to a trailer that went viral, to unflattering attention from either snarky film fans or people in the film industry.

Lost writer Damon Lindelof jokingly tweeted during the movie, “I am going to write the Sharknado sequel and I am going to do it before Shaknado is over.”

NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd observed, “I follow about a thousand folks. Every one of them tweeting about SharkNado.”

TV performers chimed in as well.

“If Ian Zeiring is not in a shark movie. It’s not a good shark movie,” tweeted 30 Rock star Judah Friedlander.

Michael Chiklis, whose most recent vehicle Vegas was just canceled by CBS, tweeted, “Oh Godd**n it, now I want to see it too and then I’m gonna want to quit the business . . . again!”

Comedian Horatio Sanz tweeted something reminiscent of a monologue joke from his SNL days, “I wish I could join in on the shenanigans, But I had a cousin that was killed by a #Sharknado back in ’93.”

A brief glance at Twitter metrics via Topsy reveals just what a viral sensation Sharknado was in a 24-hour span, one that seemed to come out of nowhere.  A graph measuring mentions of the show last Thursday looks like Mt. Fuji’s profile.  The most popular link at the time of this writing had to do with a sequel being in the works.

It remains to be seen whether its social media buzz translates into actual ratings. A preliminary Nielsen report indicates that in this case it did not, but more will be known when the final report is out.

And if you missed it, enjoy the trailer and rest assured that SyFy will rerun it.

Source: LA Times

Assassin’s Creed Players Immortalized

BY

Ubisoft and creative services agency Sid Lee teamed up recently on an art-inspired promotion for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Their campaign “Defy History” gives fans the chance to have themselves painted onto a canvas in a scene from the upcoming game. The artwork is being created by art students from Paris-based L’Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts.

The scene being depicted is “The Age of Piracy,” a nod to the setting in Assassin’s Creed IV. The promotion is now closed for new entries on the actual canvas, but users are able to take a picture of their face with a webcam and have their face replace one of the painted characters. Starting on August 1, people will be able to go to the campaign’s site and see the actual painting’s progress as it’s being created.

Ubisoft will reveal the art piece in September, just in time to promote the game. The painting will then go on exhibit in November at Le Musee de la Marine in Paris.

Source: AdAge

Deus Ex Coming To Mobile

BY

The Deus Ex series has finally made its way to mobile devices in the form of Deus Ex: The Fall. The launch trailer showcases many of the environments the main character will be playing in, the game’s combat mechanics, and hacking abilities. The game is currently out for iOS and will be out for Android later this year.