October 2014 | Page 14 of 22

‘Resident Evil’ Heading To TV

October 13, 2014, 12:00AM

Over the past few years, Constantin Film has proven quite effective at the box office, producing a number of movies based on such popular licenses as The Mortal Instruments and Resident Evil. Now, it’s giving television a try with these franchises, according to Variety.

The German production studio has confirmed that both Mortal and Resident will be getting TV series spin-offs. Executive board chairman Martin Moszkowicz confirmed the news this weekend in Cannes, during the launch of the company’s newest TV show, Shades of Guilt.

The company dabbles quite a bit with television development, but this is the first time that major franchises will be utilized, offering a new goal for it to reach. “We are increasing our TV activities substantially both in Germany and internationally,” said Moszkowicz, also emphasizing that fictional products will retain a huge focus.

When it comes to the development of such series, “we are moving rapidly,” he said. “Constantin has a lot of feature film brands and we are moving them into television. For instance, we own the rights to the book series The Mortal Instruments and we just hired a showrunner in Los Angeles, and our offices in Los Angeles and Canada are starting production next year on at least two or three international shows.”

That showrunner is none other than Ed Decter, who worked on such previous shows as Unforgettable, The Client List and In Plain Sight.

This is a new move for Mortal Instruments, especially following the news that the second film in the series, City of Ashes, was shelved due to the lackluster box office performance of last year’s release City of Bones.

Meanwhile, Resident Evil will continue to invade theaters, as a “final” chapter of the series is in the works for next year, with lead star Milla Jovovich returning. There’s no word yet if she’ll be involved with the show.

How Are Teens Listening To Music?

BY Lauren Arevalo-Downes

October 13, 2014, 12:00AM

If you believe the recent Piper Jaffray report that shows that MP3’s in all their early-aught glory are still the preferred method for kids to listen to music, you may not have gotten the full picture. While the survey includes streaming sites like Pandora, lumping other streaming sites like Spotify into “other,” it leaving out glaring omissions. Where’s SoundCloud Where’s YouTube.

Graph from Piper Jaffray

A Nielsen report from two years ago showed that YouTube was teen’s go-to place for listening to music for 64 percent of respondents, although that report excluded streaming altogether.

Due to ommisions from of these prominent reports, what we actually know about teen’s music listening preferences are murky and unreliable. So what do we believe

Based on what we know from Nielsen’s most recent report on the matter, we know that digital music sales have come down by 6 percent and streaming has increased by 32 percent, in direct conflict with Piper Jaffray’s purported 13 percent increase in MP3 listeners. We would be less inclined to believe that the MP3 business is somehow booming and more inclined to believe that music is going in the direction of the cloud, through streaming.

The proclivity of these surveys to exclude streaming or lump types of streaming into an innocuous pile called “other” doesn’t reflect reality. For a more accurate picture, we need to break out streaming as a category and pay attention to where the shift in music is actually taking place.

Hulu Considering New Ad Model While Netflix Says No To Ad Deal

BY Lauren Arevalo-Downes

October 13, 2014, 12:00AM

When it comes to online paid TV, viewers are clearly voting with their dollars and the dollars are going (mostly) to Netflix and Amazon. It’s increasingly hard for Hulu with only 6 million subscribers to Netflix’s 50 million and with Amazon’s ever-increasing content library.

The key difference between Hulu’s service and Netflix and Amazon’s is, of course, the ads. Hulu took cues from traditional TV in alternating viewing content with metered ads, but now viewers have had a taste of the alternative, the paid subscription with no ads model, it’s evident that in order to retain its position with the big leagues, Hulu will have to find a new way to integrate ads.

Netflix is continuing to show a hardline position on video ad integration, recently saying no to a deal with Ritz Crackers. Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings spoke strongly at the last earnings call: “It’s fundamental to that control orientation that we don’t cram advertisements down people’s throats.”

The paid subscription model continues to be wildly successful for Netflix, so we likely won’t be seeing ads on the platform any time soon. Hulu, however, is apparently not moving to shifting away from ads entirely as it is beholden to traditional TV networks Fox, NBC, ABC and more. Word is they are considering a pay-for-no-ads model similar to music platform Spotify.

How advertising will fit into the picture in the future of online video remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: viewers will decide.

PewDiePie Explains His Craft As A ‘Comedian Gamer’ On YouTube

BY Lauren Arevalo-Downes

October 13, 2014, 12:00AM

by Jessica Klein

As someone who creates video game content for YouTube, Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, faces particular challenges and embraces genre-specific strategies when it comes to his content. He told Rhett & Link about some of them on this, the one-year anniversary day of the duo’s podcast, “Ear Biscuits.”

To begin with, Kjellberg has to maintain a running commentary throughout the entire time he plays a game in his “Let’s Play” videos… or, at least, he seems to. “I usually shoot like an hour and maybe I’m active 20 minutes of it,” Kjellberg explained of how he manages the effect of constant dialogue, which, of course, can get tiring. However, at other times, the comedic gamer manages a steady ten minutes straight of entertaining talk while he plays. “It depends on the game,” he explained.

Either way, this requires “almost a radio DJ kind of aptitude,” Rhett noted, and Kjellberg agreed, explaining that he’s usually a “pretty chill guy” (which you can tell from his presence on “Ear Biscuits”). He has to put on a more energetic, crazier persona for his videos, but who doesn’t

This alone doesn’t explain the man’s ridiculous level of success on YouTube, success that ranks him as the number one individual creator in terms of subscribers at over 31.3 million. So what’s made the “comedian gamer,” which he suggested as his title, so popular in the genre

“Consistency,” for one, and also doing his own thing helped Kjellberg pick up subscribers left and right. While most other gamers on YouTube did “the same old, boring stuff” in Kjellberg’s earlier days on the platform (read: making Let’s Play videos with “Call of Duty”), Kjellberg came up with his now famous horror montages and took a markedly comedic angle with his running commentary. Also, Kjellberg had a unique strategy in terms of picking games to play for viewers online.

He chose the games that were “stupid,” because, as he noted, “Bad games make for funnier videos.” This piece of wisdom eventually led Kjellberg to “Happy Wheels,” which his fans were none too happy about, at first, since he’d departed with the horror game genre they’d come to love and expect. Fans on YouTube don’t always take well to change when it comes to their favorite creators, but Kjellberg’s fresh content ended up winning viewers over in the long run. “So you shouldn’t always listen to what they say,” he cautioned.

While many creators then go on to create new channels, designated to each particular variety of content they make, Kjellberg stuck to his original YouTube home. He believes this helped him rack up such impressive subscriber numbers, because he “does everything in one,” driving a higher volume of views to a single place on the video platform rather than spreading them around.

Also, Kjellberg had to thank YouTube in part for his major success. He’s been featured on the platform plenty, and he never had to alter his channel much since it started growing. “I feel like I was riding a freeway from YouTube,” he described. “YouTube must be helping somehow.”

Mostly, Kjellberg should thank his own efforts. “I would say that the consistency that I had, people really respond to that, having a close connection with my fans, which I had from the beginning, doing something unique, which kind of lifted me up from this huge market of gamers, and being a unique persona—that’s all it takes,” he said.

Well, that can’t quite be all it takes, and Kjellberg elaborated in the one-year anniversary episode of “Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link.”

The Death Of Reviews

BY Steve Peterson

October 10, 2014, 12:00AM

Game reviews used to be an important (one might even say, ahem, critical) factor in the marketing of a game. If you were able to get some advance reviews, you’d even slap a great quote or two on your packaging, and certainly in your advertising. Adroitly timing reviews to appear in magazines when the product was in the stores would help boost sales — and since more than 90 percent of a product’s sales could be had in the product’s first month, maximizing launch impact was the most important part of a marketing strategy.

Fast forward to the modern game market, and everything has changed.

The initial sales of console games no longer account for almost all of the revenue of the game; that portion is steadily decreasing, as games get longer and longer lifetimes (especially now that they can be downloaded). The now-obligatory DLC for major console game releases also provides a significant revenue boost, as well as keeping the game selling long after the initial release. Yes, the reviews have an influence on that… but the changing nature of games has affected the relevance of the reviews.

This is the second major point: For most games, the game is no longer unchanging the way console games used to be. Decades ago, once a console game shipped, that was it — there was no way to patch it. That’s why publishers spent months relentlessly scrubbing every bug they could from the games before they shipped them. Now, games are regularly patched on a weekly basis or even faster. These patches are often more than just bug fixes — they often have major effects on game play.

Over time, between content releases and patches, games evolve. Destiny already looks different than it did when it shipped. For a more extreme example, look at World of Warcraft… that game is incredibly larger and more detailed in every way than the version that first shipped.

For that matter, the initial ship date of most games doesn’t even really matter financially — not when a game is free to play. The challenge is no longer to convince someone to part with $60, but rather to take the time to download the game and give it a try. Reviews may certainly influence that decision, but even if a game didn’t get very good reviews you have a much greater chance of giving it a try when the only cost involved is some of your time.

The widespread adoption of social media has transformed the meaning of reviews in every medium. Movie reviewers were once fairly scarce, and their opinions were respected and featured prominently in movie advertising. Now, reviewers are anyone and everyone who’s on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr. Each individual review is thus worth much less… unless it comes from a trusted friend, that is. Maybe you’ll check Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic to see what the general buzz is among both pros and consumers, but in the end if a friend recommends something you’re far more likely to try it. The same is true with games.

This is also why YouTubers and the whole idea of influencer marketing has become so important. When someone you like and believe in tells you something, you’re far more likely to act on their opinion. That’s why the influencers are very careful in general to only work with products they believe in, because their influence is based on trust. If the audience begins to believe the influencer is merely a shill for whoever gave them the most money, the audience will leave.

The very nature and meaning of game reviews are under examination — what does it mean to review game that’s essentially a service, changing every week? While a review may be completely relevant and accurate when it’s published, that gradually declines as the game changes unless the review is regularly updated. And who does that? Some media outlets have made steps in that direction, updating reviews from time to time, but no site has the resources to update all of their reviews. For that matter, no media outlet can even hope to keep up with the thousands of games being released every month, if you count all platforms, with an even greater number being updated in that time frame.

This is why the ostensible reason behind the #GamerGate controversy — that the movement is about “corruption” in game journalism, defined as paying in some fashion for positive reviews — is not credible. While there have been a few cases in the past (the distant past, mind you) of magazines or web sites shading reviews more positively because of advertiser pressure, the issue is really a nonstarter today. Why would a company go to the trouble and expense of trying to manipulate one review, when one review these days has a minuscule effect on sales

Looked at in the broader sense, we have a perfect counter-example in Destiny. This game had one of the largest marketing budgets ever approved for a game. If any company could ever afford to bribe journalists for positive reviews, it would be Activision Blizzard. The stake are extraordinarily high for the company, with a $500 million investment in Destiny becoming a profitable billion-dollar franchise at risk. Yet, after months of messages to journalists, trips to Seattle to visit Bungie, and all the PR goodness Activision could muster up… Destiny earns a disappointing 77 on Metacritic. Reviews have been, in general, fairly harsh. That certainly doesn’t look like the media has been unduly influenced, does it?

While game media struggles to redefine the nature and meaning of reviews in the modern era, game developers and publishers understand that reviews don’t mean as much as they used to. Or, rather, it’s the review of each individual playing the game that really matters. The best way to influence those reviews is to create the best game you can, listen to the audience when they play it, and work to refine the game over time. Creating the very best game experience you can is the best way to earn positive reviews, and those personal recommendations that increasingly drive game purchases.

The death of reviews is not a development to be mourned, but one to be celebrated. Game developers can feel free to focus on making the best game they can, and the players will show up and spend money regardless of what reviews appear — if you’re able to create an audience, that is. That’s another issue entirely, but one thing you should know — don’t depend on reviews to create that audience for you.

Google Works On Boosting Play Store Revenue

BY Robert Workman

October 10, 2014, 12:00AM

While Google may be continuing to shine on the Android downloading front, it appears that, according to a new report, the company is concerned when it comes to overall sales.

The Information reported that even though it has a large grasp on the market with Android platforms (around 80 percent), general app revenue has fallen behind sales from those featured on Apple’s App Store. As a result, Google is preparing to try and swing more profits its way, including the introduction of a “try before you buy” program for certain apps.

With the “micro app” program, as it’s being called at the moment, users can actually download part of a title and try it out before making a full purchase – sort of like a rental or demonstration. This could make the burden of downloading large games easier, so consumers won’t think that they’re wasting their time with a purchase.

In addition, partners who have made a profit with manufacturing devices that work with Google Play will see some form of cutback, going down from 25 percent to 15 percent. One partner even got ousted from the program because, according to the report, “Google wasn’t generating enough money from Google Play.”

Google’s new demo program is a variation of the one it introduced earlier in the year, where users could have a limited amount of time with an app before requiring a purchase. This way, they won’t need to download the whole thing, and can still sample whatever the application is all about.

As far as why more iOS users purchase more apps than Android ones, it’s mainly due to the larger development cycle for Apple’s devices, even with the higher price that its goods sell for. In addition, not all Android devices come pre-installed with Google Play, leading consumers to seek out other alternatives.

However, all isn’t lost. A former Google employee speaking with The Information believes that, if all goes according to plan, the company’s app store will be neck-and-neck with Apple’s in just a few years time. Guess we’ll just have to see.

Instagram Bids To Become The Next YouTube

BY Robert Workman

October 10, 2014, 12:00AM

It’s funny how TV shows can find a separate audience through video channels – but what’s an even bigger surprise is how well it can gather attention on a site not usually devoted to videos. In this case, according to Adweek, Instagram.

In this week’s top ten, The Ellen Show featuring Ellen Degeneres continues to be a top performer, with over 223,000 likes and shares for the past week ending October 5th.

On top of that, YouTube superstar Bethany Mota has managed to get some attention with her recent appearance on Dancing With the Stars, as her video is getting quite a few hits as well.

They’re both included in the top ten below…

In the top spot, this clip {link no longer active} from The Ellen Show (which we’re not able to embed for some reason) features an 11-year old superstar dancing to Nicky Minaj’s “Anaconda.”

Coming up in second place, Nike’s latest Instagram video {link no longer active} features a skateboarder showing off his stuff while holding onto an umbrella – a feat that’s easier said than done.

NASA’s latest video {link no longer active} came in third, showing the effects of the shrinking Aral Sea in the Soviet Union during the 1960’s. Despite the minimal presentation, it’s gathered over 44,000 likes

Here’s how the rest of the top ten panned out:

4: Mercedes Benz, new F1 collaboration with Hugo Boss {link no longer active}

5: Lush Cosmetics, introducing the new Northern Lights Bath Bomb accessory {link no longer active}

6: GoPro, returning with an all-new extreme sports video, featuring a BMX biker from a first-person perspective {link no longer active}

7: Foot Locker, introducing its new Good Apples Nike KD Digital Ink Elite Crew socks line {link no longer active}

8: Vans, which focuses on a singer/writer named Penny Bird Rabbit, as part of its #LivingOfftheWall series {link no longer active}

9: Bethany Mota’s video, which features her dance team getting perfect 10’s on Dancing With the Stars {link no longer active}

10: NBA, which focuses on Kobe Bryant returning to the court with a behind-the-scenes clip {link no longer active}

As you can see, there’s plenty of variety in the most popular videos – something YouTube may be concerned with further down the road, despite their short length.

Image source {link no longer active}

Unique Mobile Game Promotion Gets The Crowd Contributing

BY Robert Workman

October 10, 2014, 12:00AM

With most free-to-play games, the business logic is already written on the wall, with some items requiring purchases and others being offered as completely optional. When it comes to Terra Battle, however, things work a bit differently.

The role-playing adventure, which is now available on iOS and Android, is the latest work from the creator of the popular Final Fantasy franchise, producer and designer Hironobu Sakaguchi. With Battle, the system runs on a “download-starter,” similar to KickStarter, but without the need for funds. With it, according to USGamer, the more people that take part in playing the free-to-play game, the more content that will be added, including new musical tracks from long-time Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, as well as new storylines, characters and missions.

“Originally, I liked the idea of Kickstarter, where it’s tied to money,” said Sakaguchi. “Then I thought, ‘Hmm, that’s not really my style, to get people to pay for my development. By that point, the game was fairly far along, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I just Facebook some of my friends I’ve worked with in the past ‘ So I jumped on messenger and asked, ‘Hey, can you write me some songs, or design some characters ‘ So that’s how this whole thing started.”

He continued, “It’s a very fluid process, and I want people I’ve collaborated with in the past to come together…kind of like a festival, I suppose, where everyone gets together and adds things. That’s one of the best things about mobile development, in my opinion — I can ask my former colleagues to make things for me.

“So for instance, with [manga artist Nakaba] Suzuki-san, he’s actually a Final Fantasy fan. He called me and said, ‘Hey, can you do an interview for us ‘ And I said, ‘Sure… if you’ll create a character for my game,'” he said.

Sakaguchi hopes the business plan will pay off, and inspire players to stick around and explore the world without having to fork over tons of money, as most free-to-play apps are prone to do. “The main reason for the download starter is the feeling that the more people you get playing, the better the game gets,” he said. “You know, in terms of someone like Amano-san, I don’t actually know what he’s planning to make! I’ll tweet something when I see the assets come in. This whole process puts me much closer to the fans than the traditional approach to game design.

“And the chart I showed off for download starter goals, that’s not really complete. So if there’s an artist in the U.S. or Europe that I want to collaborate with, maybe that’s a separate branch of the chart we can add on. The chart shows two million downloads as the final goal, but if it really succeeds we could also go 2.5, or 3 million — or go on forever.”

Here’s hoping the plan pays off for sure. In the meantime, you can read more about Terra Battle at this link.

Image source

YouTube Gaining More Advertisers

BY Robert Workman

October 10, 2014, 12:00AM

Television may continue to pull in a lot of advertising, but Google’s YouTube channel has managed to see a big upswing as well, as the video site has managed to land a number of big marketers, including Kia Motors America.

David Schoonover, national manager for CRM and Digital Marketing for Kia, recently spoke with eMarketer on the effectiveness of signing on with YouTube for video promotion. In regards to what attracted the company to the channel to begin with, Schoonover explained, “In the past, YouTube would try to earn TV ad dollars by using digital language — cost per clicks and impressions, etc. They wouldn’t show up at the annual video upfront. They wouldn’t talk in television buyer language. From an advertising dollar standpoint, digital keeps going up and taking share from radio, print, etc. But not from television.

“This year, YouTube did something that was quite brilliant yet humble at the same time,” he continued. “They showed up at the video upfronts. And instead of selling the digital way, they started selling the TV way. Lo and behold, they started earning TV ad dollars. They’ve changed their language, and it’s going to work for them.

“We recognize that YouTube as a video consumption platform is certainly unique, but not dissimilar from cable television. We look at it in some ways as another cable channel. It’s really still the TV buyers out there, and so because they’ve changed how they sell their product, that has begun to earn them some of the traditional TV ad dollars,” he said.

Schoonover also went into detail about the benefits of using YouTube. “Kia believes strongly in an “influence the influencer” strategy. Because millennials are so socially connected, if you have a message that resonates, they will embrace it, and they will share it. The amplification effect is very powerful,” he said.

“The other part that people sometimes miss is that millennials influence boomers. They don’t influence Generation X as much, since they see the world a different way. But interestingly enough, millennials and boomers actually get along pretty well.

“Boomers, who are still young enough in many cases to be working or just recently retired, certainly see everything that’s going on with technology. It’s not native to them, so they don’t quite understand it. They typically look to their millennial—call it grandchildren—for information. What happens subsequently is influence,” said Schoonover.

However, the program isn’t without its drawbacks. “YouTube’s targeting capabilities can still be better,” he said. “Their platform, in terms of advertising products, has evolved slowly. Meanwhile, Facebook has been going through massive trial and error to try and get it right to meet the needs of advertisers and not alienate their audiences. I’m also surprised YouTube hasn’t done more integration with Google search. Look at Microsoft’s Bing. They do video and search units, and started that roughly back in 2011. They went dark for a while, and then they lit back up. Whenever we’ve done video units and search on Bing, they’ve performed pretty well. And again, that probably works more for the how-to videos or specific pieces of information vs. discovery content.”

The full interview with Schoonover can be found here.