VR Marketing Stars In Bars

Having a brew at the local bar may come with a VR chaser, if some alcohol brands have their way. Tech-aided events are coming to neighborhood bars in an interesting effort to add some cachet to liquor brands, according to Adweek. Top names like Jim Beam and Dos Equis are using VR to grab attention for their tastings, and even newcomers like cinnamon-flavored Fire Eater are trying the high-tech way into consumer’s hearts, minds, and wallets.

“In this day and age, it’s really hard to capture the full undivided attention of your consumer and it’s especially hard to capture that in a crowded, busy bar,” said Rachel Harris, Jim Beam’s U.S. director of brand activation. Jim Beam’s Devil’s Cut is using Samsung Gear headsets at 250 bars in 16 U.S. markets for some 750 sampling events.

The VR headsets give the user a trip through a river of bourbon inside of a barrel, and swirls them around before exiting the barrel, all while a Jim Beam rep waves a piece of paper soaked in bourbon under their nose to enhance the sensory experience. “The virtual reality piece was a way to add a bunch of shock value and make sure that as they walk away, they’re talking about the experience,” Harris said.

Dos Equis used Oculus VR headsets at 21 different bars last year to show a three minute VR video, which boosted sales 18 percent while the live events and online video generated 27 million views. Brown-Forman used Oculus Rift to bring virtual circuses to English bars last year in order to promote their cinnamon liquor Fire Eater.

It’s hard to say if this is just a temporary gimmick or something that will become a regular part of liquor marketing. Perhaps the next time you find yourself in a bar and your head is spinning, it’ll be the VR headset and not the liquor that’s responsible.

Facebook’s Popularity With Teens Isn’t So Bad After All

There’s been plenty of dire warnings that Facebook is losing its cachet among teenagers, that may not be the case, if a new report from the Pew Research Center is to be believed. Pew’s research found that 71 percent of teens aged 13 through 17 use Facebook, making it the top social network among that age group.

Pew’s study found that Instagram was not a particularly close second at 52 percent, followed by Snapchat at 41 percent, Twitter tied with Google at 33 percent, and Vine at 24 percent. Of course, it’s not really the case that teens only use one social network — Pew found that 71 percent of those that responded use multiple networks. Of the 22 percent that use only one site, Facebook was the top choice, followed by Google+ and Instagram.

Interestingly, boys were more often Facebook users than girls (45 percent to 36 percent), but Instagram was more popular among girls (23 percent compared to 17 percent). It should surprise precisely no one that boys were far more likely to have a game console than girls, and also more likely to play games on their phone or online. What’s encouraging, though, is that 70 percent of girls either have a console or access to one, and some 59 percent play games online or on their phone.

There’s a lot more info in the study about teens and social networks, which an article on Social Times breaks down here.

Scopely & Hasbro Launch ‘Yahtzee With Buddies’ On Mobile, Apple Watch

Scopely, a leading publisher of free to play games on mobile and tablet devices, has teamed up with Hasbro, Inc. to launch the Yahtzee With Buddies game for iOS and Android {links no longer active}. The classic dice-rolling family game has been imitated many times on mobile, but this officially licensed game not only replicates the original but adds a number of social features as well. “Yahtzee is one of the world’s most beloved games, with millions of players worldwide,”said Walter Driver at Scopely. “We’re thrilled to expand the reach of this iconic family game to today’s generation of mobile players around the globe.”

The [a]listdaily caught up with Robert Gaige, senior product marketing manager at Scopely, to find out more about this licensed game and its marketing plan.

What’s your marketing strategy for Yahtzee With Buddies” How will you reach existing Yahtzee players, and enlist new ones?

We’re so excited to be partnering with Hasbro to deliver the game that they know and love, especially since Yahtzee is such an established brand. We know people will be searching for Yahtzee in the App Store, and we want to make sure that Yahtzee With Buddies is the top ranked app that people will find in their search results. We’ll also be utilizing our own proven user acquisition strategies to introduce a new generation of Yahtzee players to the classic gameplay experience.

Yahtzee With Buddies is one of the first games for the Apple Watch. Do you feel that gives you a marketing boost?

We’re all very excited about the Apple Watch and the opportunities that come with an innovative new device. We think this is a great opportunity for Yahtzee players to have access to one of their favorite games right on their wrist. Players will love how convenient and accessible the game is, and how the design is streamlined for the Watch.

Will you be able to play Yahtzee With Buddies entirely from the Apple Watch, or will you still have to use your phone?

The version for Apple Watch is a supporting app to the iOS game. Yahtzee With Buddies on the Apple Watch will alert you when you have turns waiting, tell you what turn it is, and whether it’s a tournament or PVP session. The Apple Watch app will also include chat notifications, tournament announcements, and opponents’ roll status. These are unique additions to the game experience, as not every game is of equal importance to each user. If you’re playing a close friend or family member, for example, there’s more urgency and you’ll want to take your turn right away. If you’re playing against a stranger but preoccupied, you can dismiss the turn without even having to take your phone out of your pocket.

How important are the social aspects of the game?

The social aspects are essential to the game. The best part of Yahtzee With Buddies is playing with your friends and family, and we really believe this is bringing the family game night experience to mobile. Families used to be able to sit down and connect around the dinner table with games like Yahtzee, but with families and friends on the go and spread throughout the country, this makes it easy to stay connected no matter where you are. Facebook is also completely integrated into the app to support these connections, and we’ll be adding more exciting social features in the coming months to create even deeper social interactions.

Tell us about the in-app purchases available in Yahtzee With Buddies, and will there be other monetization (such as advertising) for the game?

There will be advertising in the game, and players can also purchase bonus rolls. Players who purchase bonus rolls of $4.99 or more will have the advertisements removed. There will also be custom dice that people can earn through accomplishments, and may also be included as a surprise with special purchases.

Website: http://scopely.com/

$1.5 Million Secured For Virtual Reality App Store Wear VR

Virtual reality is about to turn a large corner on the market, with devices from Razer, Sony, Oculus Rift and others set to soon make their way to retail. However, one company has already secured a great deal of money before the VR rush has even begun.

VentureBeat has reported that Wear VR, a company that serves as an app store for virtual reality-based games, has managed to raise $1.5 million in funding to help secure its current store basis, as well as add improvements. Unnamed Atlanta-based investors were responsible for the fund raising, and Wear VR wisely intends to use the money to add new features before the virtual reality market gains steam.

With the investment, the company will launch an app that will allow users to search through virtual reality-based software on mobile devices for download.

“Despite minimal marketing, we’ve witnessed phenomenal interest in Wear VR since we launched in July,” said company co-founder Nic Mitham. “This funding will allow us to reach the growing number of people excited by the possibilities of virtual reality, as well as expanding the store’s functionality, as requested by our vocal and passionate community of VR fans.”

Wear VR already has over 900 unique VR-based apps to choose from, and has seen more than 200,000 downloads to date, for use with devices like Google’s Cardboard and Samsung’s VR tech. Obviously, those numbers will pick up as more devices head to retail.

“Our priorities include growing and harnessing the power of our community, and increasing the number and range of experiences offered through the store,” said Mitham. “We’re also looking to add a recommendation engine and implement user-curated game lists.”

However, the company will remain an independent operator, even with the pressure from many big-name companies entering the fray. “It’s important for us, and our users, that Wear VR offers the broadest range of VR software,” said Mitham. “With new devices being announced on an almost-weekly basis, virtual reality is about more than Oculus Rift: we want fans to know that they can download and access games from Wear VR for whatever device they’re using.”

We certainly wish them the best of virtual luck.

YouTube Subscription Service Could Launch This Year

Earlier this month, we reported that YouTube may be considering some form of paid video service, in an effort to introduce a new stream of revenue. This week, VentureBeat followed up with even more news, indicating that the company may be moving forward with a paid, ad-free program.

The company shuffled off a letter to content creators, indicating that it would be introducing the plan in a matter of months.

“Your fans want choices,” the letter reads. “Not only do they want to watch what they want, whenever they want, anywhere, and on any device they choose, they want YouTube features built specifically with their needs in mind. Over the past several months, we’ve taken bold new steps to bring these experiences to life. Since inviting hundreds of thousands of fans into our YouTube Music Key Beta, we’ve seen tremendous engagement. And we’ve seen an equally enthusiastic response for our new YouTube Kids app, designed to give families a simpler and safer video-viewing experience – it’s already crossed two million installations in less than one month.

“We’re excited to build on this momentum by taking another big step in favor of choice: offering fans an ads-free version of YouTube for a monthly fee. By creating a new paid offering, we’ll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising revenue.”

With the program, content creators will still make a reasonable amount of money with paid content, with a healthy dose of revenues created from subscriptions going back to them. The terms of service surrounding said creation should be updated on the site by June 15. “YouTube will pay you 55 percent of the total net revenues recognized by YouTube from subscription fees that are attributable to the monthly views or watch time of your content as a percentage of the monthly views or watch time of all or a subset of participating content in the relevant subscription offering (as determined by YouTube),” said the statement. “If your Content is included in and viewed by a user in multiple subscription offerings, YouTube will pay you based on the subscription offering with the highest amount of net revenues recognized by YouTube, as calculated by YouTube.”

This move would put YouTube in competition with various other streaming sites, including Netflix, Hulu and the recently launched HBO Now. It could also draw in potential new streamers to be featured on the channel, but without such of a heavy focus on companies to advertise – although there would still be plenty for those who prefer not to take the subscription route.

Five Ways ‘Video Game High School’ Crushed It On YouTube

by Jessica Klein

Video Game High School, the three-season show from Freddie Wong and his production company Rocket Jump, marks one of the most successful series to grace Google’s video platform. The show generated more than 110 million views during its three-season run on YouTube, and measured a 400 percent week-over-week increase in viewership from one season to the next.

In honor of the show’s high view count, Google took the time to analyze its tactics and ultimately measure its achievements.

VGHS's total views as it grew on YouTube

It’s important to know that Rocket Jump earned its success with Video Game High School. Wong and Rocket Jump colleague Matt Arnold worked hard to crowdfund, collaborate with brands, and get some bigger studios involved in the production, in addition to using their YouTube knowledge to leverage the platform’s tools and tricks.

Here’s a breakdown of how they gathered the hype and the money to propel a popular series through three seasons on YouTube…

This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.

HeartbeatsMUSIC Changes The Beat For Apple Watch

There are tunes that can certainly fit a person’s mood, whether it’s kicking back with easygoing selections or rocking out to some classic Lynyrd Skynyrd to relieve work-related stress. However, the introduction of HeartbeatsMUSIC could change the way a user listens to music forever.

PSFK reports that the program, a concept put together by Beats Music for use with the Apple Watch, utilizes the pulse function within the device, and organizes tracks based on beats that may be playing nearby – or with the rhythm of the user’s pulse itself. The categorization happens automatically, this providing an “Upbeat Workout Playlist” (or whatever may fit the pulse) to keep that tempo going. The video below, Future Lions 2015, provides a demonstration of how this works.

Zynga Founder Mark Pincus Returns

Sometimes, in the business world, it helps to go back to basics – or turn to an old face to rejuvenate a company’s standards.

That’s certainly the situation Zynga is facing, as the company saw CEO Don Mattrick, who took the job two years ago after leaving Microsoft, stepped down this week. Taking his spot at CEO is the man who left it at that time, company founder Mark Pincus, Re/Code reports.

Mattrick’s departure had been rumored for some time, but feels like a sudden one. He’s made great progress with the company over the last two years, changing its focus more towards mobile and helping cut costs in certain areas. Zynga now derives the majority of its revenue from mobile games (over 60%), versus only 27% of revenue from mobile when Mattrick arrived. Still, Pincus stated that the parting was amicable.

“Don and I and the board came to this together and it was super amicable,” said Pincus. “(But) it’s been two years and we are still not winning as a company on the level we had hoped and think we can be. We need to move fast and we need to act a little bit more as a startup, by focusing more on enterpreneuring and speed than on structure and management.” With that, he believes that a focus on a broader mobile customer base would be a good option to take.

Pincus was the CEO of the company before Mattrick was hired, stepping down as certain pressure around Wall Street forced him to walk away. “I basically fired myself,” he said when Mattrick took over. After working on a series of startups, he’s now set to try and bring his company back to prosperity.

“When we brought Don in a little under two years ago, the company was not in a strong place when I handed it to him,” he explained. “And he fixed a lot of important things, reduced costs and got us on the path to mobile.”

Now, the goal is to make Zynga return to a more proper form. “What has differentiated our company is that we got a whole new class of adults to pay and play and we have to do that again,” he said. He also believes that the company “needs to build our own network and cross-promotion ability.”

Pincus added, “Not having a clear goal leads to death by a thousand compromises,” although he was more positive in a statement he sent out to employees. “I am inspired by our upcoming products – it is the most exciting slate of mobile games in Zynga’s history with titles like Empires & Allies, Dawn of Titans and FarmVille: Harvest Swap. These games are coming on the heels of one of the most successful mobile launches in our history with Wizard of Oz Slots, which was launched this past November by our Spooky Cool team in Chicago.

“I am returning to the company that I love in order to accelerate innovation in the most popular categories like Action/Strategy and strengthen our focus on our core areas like Invest and Express,” he continued. “I look forward to partnering with our leaders to intensify our focus on social experiences for the millions of consumers who play our games.”

The full statement can be found here.

Whether it can recoup its losses – it was down $226 million last year, compared to a $37 million loss in 2013 – is too soon to tell at this point. Still, having someone familiar like Pincus in charge could lead the company in a new successful direction. Zynga’s still got over $1 billion in cash, and losses last quarter were only $4 million. That gives the company plenty of runway as it plans to release between six and ten new titles this year. The short term looks positive, and we’ll have to wait to see what long-term direction looks like under Pincus.

Image source

Big Fish Games Shares Industry Stats

Big Fish Games is the world’s largest producer and distributor of casual games, having distributed more than 2.5 billion games since its founding in 2002. The company has a catalog of 450+ mobile games and over 3,500 PC games, and has the top-grossing mobile social casino game in Big Fish Casino. The company’s Video Game Stats Database is a recent innovation, and it’s serving up some fascinating facts about games. The [a]listdaily spoke with Big Fish marketing manager Conor Murphy to find out more.

Conor Murphy

When did Big Fish decide to create the Video Game Statistics Database, and why?

The video game database was launched in March. Our goal is to create a video game information repository. We wanted to construct a way to explore facts and stats in an accessible and interesting way, integrating text and infographics.

How do you choose what content to put into the Database?

Our core topics for the Stats Database are mobile, casual, and international gaming, but we’ve mixed in a number of broader industry statistics that we find interesting even if they go outside of the types of games Big Fish Games produces. For the most part we’re focusing on third party research and statistics at the moment, with some additional analysis done by our content team when we find raw data.

What’s been the most popular infographic in the Database?

We’ve received some great interaction from our Facebook fans on graphics like the “The Gamification of Scientific Discovery“. We’ve also had some positive industry response on “Where Mobile Games are Played.”

What are the demographics of Big Fish’s audience?

Our audience is really diverse, so it depends a lot on which Big Fish game we’re looking at. Our hidden object games are played by a different audience than Gummy Drop or Fairway Solitaire, and even within a single game like Big Fish Casino we see a wide variety of customer segments between Texas Hold ’em, Slots, and Roulette.

While we have a few entries that are more relevant to the traditional console gamer, we’ve focused on keeping the Stats Database interesting to a broad group of people, even our fans that don’t think of themselves as video gamers.

What topics are you planning to cover in the Database in the future?

The core topics of mobile, casual, and international gaming are changing so rapidly that we don’t expect to run out of content ideas in the near future, but we’re always looking for interesting data and research to cover.

 

Web: www.bigfishgames.com

Twitter: @bigfishgames

Activision, Square Tap Twitch, Snapchat For Cryptic Game Reveals

Usually, when a company promotes a game, it goes all-out, advertising it with trailers, advertisements and more, in an effort to get gamers excited for it. However, Activision and Square Enix have both hopped on the viral bandwagon for its latest game reveals, both of which tie in to popular game franchises.

Re/Code has reported that Activision’s campaign utilizes small, cryptic clips via Snapchat, with the one first one located here and the second one at this link. Although Call of Duty isn’t mentioned in either one, they do show strange, tranquil visions, where a soothing voice guides the viewer through a number of blurry yet peaceful visions.

The videos can be found via Snapchat codes, which are randomly placed in maps in a previous Call of Duty game, Black Ops II. Once scanned and uploaded, the videos show under the Snapchat QR code name “Snaptags,” which, when scanned, reveals that they came from the “callofduty” account. The video below, produced by YouTube user TmarTn, shows just where these codes can be found.