Games are usually categorized as purely entertainment, and their artistic value can often be overlooked. Many of the new games on the market, from thatgamecompany’s compelling Journey to Nintendo’s upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD reboot, are using a refreshing artistic approach that drives home just how much talent goes into creating these works of art. With artistic vision in mind, Tequila Works is working on a new game called Rime, a game that combines the best elements of Zelda, Journey and Ico into one beautiful adventure. It’s a visual feast, and if the gameplay is anywhere near the same quality, this will be a hit.
Rime is currently scheduled for a 2014 release on PlayStation 4.
Humor and a firm grasp of the odd has been a hallmark of Old Spice since the highly successful campaign starring Isaiah Mustafa. Old Spice continues in this tradition with a series of 15 second spots starring NFL players Wes Welker of the Denver Broncos and Jerod Mayo of the New England Patriots. You may think you know where the ad is going when it starts, but you’ll never guess where it ends. It’s a great lesson in creating memorable spots that are sure to get passed around.
The hugely popular Games Workshop miniatures game Space Hulk has become the first-person shooter Space Hulk: Deathwing, aptly demonstrated by this teaser trailer. As you’d expect from any Space Hulk game, you play a Space Marine Terminator and fight Genestealers on board a creepy derelict space ship. The Unreal Engine 4 game looks gorgeous, grim and ready for action.
No word yet on the release date, but this video is sure to spur interest.
Toyota Europe tasked Saatchi & Saatchi Milan with trying to make a station wagon cool, and the agency rose to the challenge with this spot for the Toyota Auris Hybrid. The ad, directed by Steve Ayson, takes you backward through a day filled with remarkable events, all made possible by the compelling features of the Auris wagon. It’s a master class in integrating product features with compelling visuals and an interesting storyline, and it’ll leave you wanting to know more about this remarkable station wagon.
At one point, many would-be buyers of the Xbox One feared that Microsoft wouldn’t allow them to play used games on their machine. It’s nice to see the company hasn’t followed such a structure. In fact, it’s introduced a new plan that will allow players to share their game experiences even more than ever.
Senior director Albert Penello talked about the expansion of the program, which would allow players to trade or loan out downloadable games to other players, though there’s not a specific date as to when it would launch into action. Day one may be likely, but that’s not confirmed yet.
Penello stated, “We were trying to implement the ability to trade (and) loan digital games with your friends, which is something that no one else was doing. I believe, in retrospect, that people have calmed down and gone back and actually looked at what we said, people are starting to understand, ‘Wow, they did want actually to allow me to loan and trade’ which other digital ecosystems don’t want to do. And so, yeah, I think we need to do that. That has to be part of the experience. Right now, we’re focused on launch and we switched the program back to discs, because that’s what customers wanted.”
The Xbox One is set to launch worldwide on November 22.
With Pokémon XandY due for release next month, The Pokémon Company is ramping up all sorts of promotions for the 3DS games. Included in that is a new program called the Pokémon Bank, which is a downloadable app for the 3DS.
With this app, players will be able to store Pokémon in online boxes – with a total of 100, allowing for the storage of 3,000 Pokémon characters in all. Players can then access their library without having to worry about system storage, since it uses online-based cloud services. In addition, players of Pokémon Black & White 1 and 2 can transfer their characters over with ease, using the poke Transporter.
The service will require players to pay an annual fee, with the Japanese version going for $5. No word yet on U.S. and European costs, but it’s likely to be the same.
While Microsoft is putting a big focus on its Xbox One console this holiday season, it hasn’t forgotten about the system that put it in the lead of the U.S. and European markets over the past few years – the Xbox 360.
The company confirmed today that the system will receive an additional three years of support, giving it a lengthy shelf life that’s even longer than the original Xbox. Xbox Marketing and Strategy Chief Yusuf Mehdi confirmed this today during the Citi Global Technology Conference.
“We’re going to continue to invest in the Xbox 360 and the two devices can work in concert,” said Mehdi. “It’s not like the day we ship the Xbox One your 360 won’t work; we’ll continue to support it. In fact, we’re going to ship over 100 new games on Xbox 360. So you’ll still be able to play your (older) games, just not on the same exact box.”
The 360 will be home to various third party releases as well, including Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Watch_Dogs and Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Sony Online Entertainment is at it again, weaving an intertextual pairing of cultural references that probably no one saw coming, yet seem to go together like bacon and everything. The latest trailer for SOE’s Dragon’s Prophet again blends the lore in the Asian-developed dragon-based MMO with American super metal music, and the result is pretty darn funny.
The trailer is produced by Ayzenberg, publisher of [a]list daily. It’s the second in SOE’s #SuperMetal campaign for Dragon’s Prophet. If you’re wondering what inspired the approach, check out our exclusive interview with SOE head of marketing Laura Naviaux. (And if you make it to the end of the interview, you’ll see Naviaux who can bang heads with the best of them.)
“I hear YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are merging to form a super Social Media site – YouTwitFace.” -Conan O’Brien. More quotes to rev up your hump day.
This week’s [a]list jobs:
Riot Games, Brand Manager (Santa Monica, CA)
Electronic Arts, Strategic Sourcing Manager, Marketing Services (Redwood City, CA)
Ayzenberg Group, New Business Development (Greater Los Angeles Area)
Blizzard Entertainment, Public Relations Manager (Orange County, California Area)
[a]list daily is now your source for the hottest job openings for senior management and marketing in games, entertainment and social media. Check here every Wednesday for the latest openings. To see last week’s [a]list jobs click here.
Google is calling the next version of the Android operating system Kit Kat in keeping with their tradition of naming the OS versions after food items. This time, it’s a trademarked food item that Google struck a licensing agreement with Nestle (Hershey licenses the Kit Kat name from Nestle in the US). If you visit Google’s Android page you’ll see a Kit Kat bar with an Android-themed wrapper.
This cross-promotion deal (which involved no money changing hands) has a contest going that will put vouchers for a free Nexus 7 tablet and Google Play credits into some Kit Kat bars. There will even be some Android-shaped Kit Kat bars appearing in some markets.
Check out this clever commercial extolling the high-tech features engineered into the Kit Kat bar.
“One of the snacks that we keep in our kitchen for late-night coding are Kit Kats,” said John Lagerling, director of Android global partnerships. “And someone said: ‘Hey, why don’t we call the release Kit Kat ‘ We didn’t even know which company controlled the name, and we thought that [the choice] would be difficult. But then we thought well why not, and we decided to reach out to the Nestle folks.”
A BBC report described the process: “Mr Lagerling said he had made a ‘cold call’ to the switchboard of Nestle’s UK advertising agency at the end of November to propose the tie-up. The next day, the Swiss firm invited him to take part in a conference call. Nestle confirmed the deal just 24 hours later. “Very frankly, we decided within an hour to say let’s do it,” Patrice Bula, Nestle’s marketing chief told the BBC.”
The brand promotion is significant, with over 50 million KitKat bars in 19 countries featuring Android and the chance to win a Nexus 7 or Google Play credits. The promotion was even kept secret from Google employees, with the company referring to the new operating system release internally as ‘Key Lime Pie.’ The wrappers began production two months ago, yet the secret was maintained.
The promotion was a little more complicated in the US, since Hershey licenses the KitKat name here. Google had to work out a deal with Hershey’s so that US KitKat bars would be part of the promotion as well. Nestle is commemorating the partnership with 500 specially-produced KitKats in the shape of the Android logo.
How did the whole deal arise Apparently Android engineering head Hiroshi Lockheimer loves KitKats to the point where a KitKat was his Gmail icon, and the Android team even decorated his door with KitKats at one point.
