Microsoft: Let Gamers Choose Digital Or Retail

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Even though digital games are on the rise for Xbox and PlayStation consoles – and will continue to do so with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 arriving next month – there’s still plenty of room for retail releases, according to Microsoft corporate VP Phil Harrison.

In an interview with MCV UK, Harrison explained that despite digital growth, retailers have nothing to fear as far as a lack of physical products. “On a macro-global scale, the world is clearly moving in a digital direction. It is, I think, an unstoppable, inexorable momentum. We are going to see the world be truly digital. But with Xbox One we quite correctly give people choice. They can consume and play games on disc, and get all the benefits of that. Or they can consume games digitally. Remember our games will launch day-and-date on both digital and physical, so it’s up to the user to choose which medium they want and have the benefits of either method.”

Regarding how retailers would “survive,” Harrison stated, “I think if the medium is shifting that does not mean the business model has to shift. From research we have done, consumers like to buy things from retail stores. What they might be buying is a time card or a store value card. Retailers have a very important part to play in the future of the ecosystem, but what they merchandise might shift slightly.”

Read the full interview here.

Source: MCV UK

South Korea’s Mobile Growth

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South Korea is a huge market when it comes to mobile gaming, with over 33 million active smartphones and tablets. Keep in mind that’s only 2.8 percent of the entire worldwide connected device market — but still many devices and a savvy audience.

That’s mainly due to the approaching saturation of said market, and the fact that it’s close to home for Samsung, a company that’s thriving with its mobile devices. On top of that, it’s also the place where various domestic firms use connectivity with said devices, as well as a fair share of “phablet” (phone/tablet) fans.

The installed base of connected devices grew by 81 percent over the last twelve months, ending in August 2013, according to a Flurry report. By comparison, the South Korean market only shows a 17 percent growth, but it’s expanding in other ways. That particular country’s market has a more rapid growth in general, with Samsung controlling approximately two-thirds of its mobile market in itself. It sits at around 60 percent, compared to Apple having only 14 percent and LG just slightly above that with 15.

Games are the leading app category for both Android and iOS devices. Interestingly, iOS devices are often used for entertainment, while Android devices rarely are. Other interesting stats can be found at the Flurry blog.

Source: Flurry

Fight With Attitude

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When most folks sit down to play fighting games like Street Fighter IV or Mortal Kombat, they use a conventional game controller to execute special moves and beat their opponents. However, for the Wii U, a development team has a new concept on how its fighting game will work with Fighter Attitude – through gestures.

Jorge Mijangos, a member of the Kaveluza team, explained that Nintendo has accepted the team for game development, and it’s hard at work on Attitude’s unconventional control style, which will use the system’s Gamepad to execute moves in certain ways.

 

Originally released for mobile devices, Attitude is similar in set-up to EA Sports’ Fight Night series, where players will use swipes and flicks to determine how on-screen actions work, instead of just hitting a button. This means swiping up for a punch or some other special attack, and moving a different way to try something else. This introduces a new kind of skill set that everyone – not just fighting masters – can get into.

There’s no word on release yet, but don’t be surprised if Fighter Attitude knocks its way to the eShop sometime in 2014.

Source: Cinema Blend

This Week’s [a]list Jobs – October 16

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“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” -Woody Allen

Here are this week’s [a]list jobs:

[a]list daily is your source for the hottest job openings for senior management and marketing in games, entertainment and social media.

To see last week’s jobs, click here.

Games Hit New Peak In Middle East

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The tremendous expansion of the gaming industry in the past decade has been a product of the increasing reach of the Internet, the explosion of mobile devices, and the global spread of these two factors. One of the strongest growth regions for games has been the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), with a large population that has adopted social media and mobile technology rapidly. Despite political turmoil in some areas, mobile and social games have continued to grow strongly, and one of the leaders in this growth has been Peak Games.

Rina Onur, Peak Games co-founder and CSO

Commenting on Peak Games’ growth, investment bank Digi-Capital’s Founder Tim Merel said, “Peak’s management team continues to drive them from strength to strength, capitalising on deep cultural connections and understanding of their core Turkey/MENA markets. Our experience is that synchronous multiplayer and mobile are key growth drivers for leading games companies globally. Peak’s strength in these markets positions them as one of the most valuable players in Turkey/MENA.”

Peak is close to its three year anniversary, and the company is engaging a record setting 300,000 concurrent users (CCU)and 11.8 million daily active users (DAU) across Turkey and MENA. Revenues have grown by 300 percent per year with the huge growth of social and mobile games. Most of Peak’s games are what they term the parlor games genre — traditional and popular board, card and table-top games. These games are, as the company puts it, “focused on the community based, multiplayer and synchronous games that are part of everyday life.”

The [a]list daily spoke with Rina Onur, Peak Games co-founder and chief strategy officer, to find out more about Peak Games and the MENA marketplace. One of the key elements in Peak’s growth has been its choice of game genres. “As a company, we choose to focus on community driven games; games that require active and real-time participation of others to deliver a meaningful play experience,” explained Onur. “Our most popular games are those in the Plus Franchise. They are community driven, multiplayer, synchronous titles and are part of the everyday lifestyle in Turkey.”

The Plus Franchise is on of Peak’s game studios, and focuses on games which are digital renditions of traditional and popular board, card, and tabletop games. “Straight from the heart of local offline game culture, these games have been important parts of daily lives for generations,” said Onur. “The Plus Franchise alone has more than 300,000 concurrent users and includes six different games: Okey, Okey Plus, 101 Plus, Tavla Plus, Batak and Pool Plus. In addition; our flagship mid-core title War of Mercenaries thrives from a dedicated community that is interested in multiplayer combat and empire building.”

Peak sees mobile games making up an increasing share of the business, and they have integrated that into their strategy. “Our cross-platform strategy has been a key part of our growth,” agreed Onur. “As we release new games, they are cross-platform at launch on Facebook, iOS and Android. Mobile versions of some of the most successful games, including Okey Plus and 101 Plus, are consistently in top grossing lists, generating half their revenues from Android and iOS platforms. The strategy of building on communities that are generated around games, requires 24-hour and easy access. That is why a cross-platform strategy that initially started on Facebook, but is now also growing rapidly on smart phones and tablets, is key for us.”

The Middle East region is not, as you might think, dominated by Android devices. “The split between iOS and Android is fairly even with Android growing a bit more quickly and we’re starting to see greater market share in Android,” said Onur. “I think with this story, what we experience in Turkey and MENA is pretty similar to what a lot of Western players are experiencing in North America or Europe. Although the number of Androids are a bit larger, the conversion and ARPPU metrics on iOS are still better compared to Android.”

As is true elsewhere, tablets are becoming more important. “Tablets are increasing in volume rapidly in our region as well. The per user metrics we observe on tablets is extremely encouraging, which makes it an even more exciting opportunity and platform for us,” said Onur. “We have brought our flagship titles to both iOS and Android tablets, which are performing extremely well, so as we continue building community driven games, tablets as a platform, will be a major target for us. At the same time, we have very high hopes for the mobile versions of our mid-core games. We will be launching some exciting new games before the end of this year both for smart phones and tablets. Even though currently, smartphones are over-performing tablets overall — due to the sheer volume of devices that are lying around in the region — we believe tablets will become a significant strategic platform for game developers.”

Onur expects growth to continue in the future. “We consider Turkey a significant player in the MENA region,” said Onur. “Turkey will continue its rapid growth both in terms of Internet and smartphone/tablet penetration. The MENA region has the second highest rate of smartphone shipments out of Asia, so the region is growing like crazy. Following Turkey are Gulf region countries such as Saudi Arabia and Emirates. These countries will continue to grow both on PC and mobile; that’s why opportunities are almost limitless here.”

Facebook Gives ‘Call of Duty’ A Lift

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Regardless of what people think about Activision milking the Call of Duty franchise, the publisher gets credit for not short shrifting any of the recent games in the series when it comes to high-profile marketing. For Call of Duty: Ghosts, which releases next month, Activision tapped into paid ads on Facebook mobile, and apparently the effort paid off.

Activision and Facebook released a case study brief highlighting results from the game’s paid ad campaign on Facebook, which they described as targeting users “primarily on mobile.”  According to the study, Facebook helped Activision’s Call of Duty: Ghosts campaign reach 37 percent of all U.S. males aged 18-44, and more than half of them in the 18-24 year old bracket.  The campaign reached 23 million people in total and generated 50 million impressions.  Impressively, more than 85 percent of that reach was on target, delivering the ads to about 20 million males aged 18-44.

The Call of Duty franchise is one of the most recognizable video game franchises.  Activision and Facebook’s statistics also show that the Call of Duty: Ghosts brand was able to get a 14 percent lift in awareness among its 18-44 year old target audience, and a 24 percent lift among 25-34 year olds.

Source: Facebook

‘Call of Duty’ Glory Days

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Call of Duty is now a staple of November and it’s something its tens of millions of fans experience and love.  As Activision’s series of TV spots show, for the rest of us, we might just have to smile and nod while they give their “you had to be there” stories of multiplayer.

Worth noting that we’re a big fan of the “Tea Time” ad and its hilarious visual metaphors with the teabag.

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Creativity-Online.com