Via Facebook Live, Ayzenberg’s Lindsey Buchanan sat down with VP of communications at YouNow, Paula Batson, to discuss the platform’s features and the implications of livestreaming for media and especially music.
“YouNow is part of this trend toward participatory media,” said Batson. “This generation demands to be a part of the media.”
What makes YouNow unique is that you don’t have to necessarily be a broadcaster in order to create content. With the Moments feature, a viewer can capture live content and share it on Twitter and Facebook.
“If you are not a broadcaster, you can still be a creator.”
The platform has seen the rise of music influencers like Hailey Knox, who has since secured a record deal. For a new generation of musicians, livestreaming platforms like YouNow provide an immediate connection to their audience to hone their craft and get instant feedback.
“It’s unique to YouNow that Hailey Knox was able to develop her career in this way.”
Paula refers to YouNow’s influencers who have come to prominence on the platform as “homegrowns,” but YouTube influencers also utilize YouNow as a space to connect more directly with their audience.
“Influencers today want to use all the platforms in an integrated way,” said Batson. “The audience today is really voracious. You’re always feeding the beast with content.”
When asked what Batson would recommend to brands who are interested in leveraging livestreaming Batson emphasized the interactive element.
“Think about a campaign where the viewers can participate with the influencers.”
If you have an insatiable appetite for nutty and narcissistic babies who seemingly stepped off the set of Mad Max to brawl in colosseums, consider yourself blessed because Bebylon Battle Royale is one step closer to becoming a reality—in virtual reality.
Cinematic VR studio Kite & Lightning’s radical, comedic social game has secured $2.5 million in seed funding led by Raine Ventures to bring the experience of immortal baby gladiators competing against one another in front of a live VR spectator audience for status and fame; players will be able to venture outside of the mishap future setting to socialize, experience shows and take virtual rides in what will be the Los Angeles-based studio’s first immersive gaming experience.
The brainchildren behind Bebylon Battle Royale are founders Ikrima Elhassan and Cory Strassburger, veterans in VR whose credits include VR experiences for brands such as Lionsgate (Insurgent), NBC Universal (The Voice) and GE (Neuro).
“Kite & Lightning has been pushing the envelope in cinematic virtual reality for three years, and we are thrilled to be partnered with this industry-leading creative team,” said Gordon Rubenstein, managing partner at Raine Ventures. “Their upcoming title, Bebylon Battle Royale, is the most impressive social gaming experience we’ve ever seen, and we believe is only the beginning of a unique metaverse that will captivate gamers and audiences for years to come.”
Ikrima Elhassan, co-founder and CEO of Kite & Lightning, joined [a]listdaily to talk about how they plan on blending gaming, social and story to create an emotionally transformative experience.
The $2.5 million in seed funding you received will surely grow your two-person team. How do you plan on further building out capability?
We’re looking forward to expanding the team size. We’ve already expanded to four and are still looking to hire multidisciplinary, passionate people who are looking to work in VR.
The origin of your story is a unique one. Why was it important to come back to the US after a year abroad? How is VR different outside of stateside confines?
Los Angeles is the epicenter of VR, even more so than Silicon Valley. We left for a year abroad for a creative sabbatical and to focus on laying the groundwork for the Bebylon universe. Outside of the US, VR is definitely more nascent but attracts a small group of super-dedicated people. I think the VR scene in Paris is making the best headway in VR cinema. We always intended to return after a year, but it’s great to interact with folks outside the US in VR.
What does operating a hybrid film and gaming studio allow you to do when it comes to combining cinematic storytelling with interactive gaming?
I think this is just our focus on what we think make compelling VR experiences. We say what theater was to film, VR is to film. Just like theater still exists in modern-day society, completely passive VR experiences will exist in the future. But, the most compelling experiences will be a meld of interactive/gaming and narrative.
Can you explain your pillars of gaming, social and story, and how it all comes together? Why is this combo critical for a great VR experience?
Our world is set in a future where humanity discovers an immortality pill; the downside is that no one ages past the baby stage despite being mature adults on the inside. At the core of this world is the SuperSmash Bros.-esque style game where baby gladiators compete against each other for status and fame. So as a player, you can be a gamer and partake in these arenas and try to become the most famous, narcissistic baby gladiator. But, you can also go attend and spectate the matches as all of the stages occur in colosseum-style arenas. As a spectator, you can also cheer, boo or even toss items into the ring that players can use in their fight. And then outside of the arenas, there exists the entire mini-MMO universe of Bebylon Battle Royale where you can experience the history of Bebylon as well as attend shows, go on rides and socialize with other players. So, we like to say, ‘come for the game, stay for the social narrative.’
How can gaming experiences, specifically ones that are social, turn from a one-to-one to a social one?
For us, it’s been designed as an integral part from day one. ‘Let’s play’ is already a huge phenomenon in gaming with Twitch and YouTube and we feel that it’ll be more important in VR. With Bebylon, we wanted to take ‘let’s play’ one step further by allowing interactive spectating where you can also affect the outcome of the matches by throwing items and sponsoring different gladiators.
Bebylon Battle Royale is a world built around competitive spectator gaming. Can you tell us a little more about how the idea sparked, what the VR experience will entail, and how it differentiates itself?
The idea sparked from an insight we had years ago. During the course of creating VR experiences for the last three years, we knew that some of the most compelling moments in VR was when we combined interactive elements from gaming while transporting you to surreal environments. And then from there, we immediately wanted to have our friends there with us. But when we had the original groundwork for this idea years ago, it was way too ahead of its time and the VR ecosystem was too small. Now we have the resources as well as an eager, rapidly growing audience to bring this to life.
What have you learned along the way about creating engaging VR experiences? What’s your special sauce?
I’d say keeping an open mind and constantly experimenting is the secret to creating engaging VR. The medium is so new that there are no experts, and for every best practice that someone spouts, there’s a great counter example.
What is the best way brands can use 360-degree video and VR for their integrated marketing strategies?
I don’t think 360-degree video is a good way for brands to utilize VR in their marketing strategies. I think 360-video is a small ephemeral stepping stone that will quickly go away. I think people gravitate toward it because it’s the lowest common denominator and requires the lowest technical barrier to entry, but I don’t think the best compelling VR experiences come from 360 VR. The Martian is a great example of what I think is a great integrated brand marketing strategy.
What is the hardest part about marketing VR?
It’s really difficult to convey how awesome something is in VR when you only see a trailer of it in a 2D version. Some people have done some cool innovations with mixed reality videos but at the end of the day, if you’ve never tried VR, you’re just not going to understand. Trying to convey VR to someone is like trying to convey how awesome your favorite song is through pictures.
Are consumers ready for VR today? Do you think they are clamoring for it? Or are they coiled?
Absolutely; we’re constantly surprised by how fast the VR audience is growing and how everyone we’ve ever shown VR to wants to buy a headset. We still think it’ll be two years before VR goes wide mainstream, but it definitely will.
The first season of Turner and WME/IMG’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) was a success across digital and broadcast platforms with over 897 million gross minutes of video consumption. While the bulk of viewership was online, the weekly Friday night television component brought in 3.4 million new viewers to TBS.
Arby’s signed on as the official quick service restaurant of ELeague. Founded in 1964, the franchised sandwich restaurant brand has more than 3,300 restaurants worldwide. The company is based in Atlanta, GA, which also happens to be the hometown of Turner.
Jeff Baker, vice president of brand experience at Arby’s, said all of Arby’s ELeague content and activation was developed in partnership with Turner and WME/IMG. “It would not have been possible otherwise,” Baker said.
Throughout its first season, ELeague generated more than 25 million live video streams on Twitch for live event coverage. Arby’s uses television advertising to connect with consumers on a daily basis, but ELeague opened the brand up to a global online audience.
Mary Ellen Barto, vice president of brand media at Arby’s, said that the television component was important, but it was just one piece of the broader distribution of the competition. “The fact that fans had the option to experience the competition in the way that was most desirable to them—television, Twitch, or in-person—was compelling to us,” Barto said.
Arby’s jumped into the eSports fray because both its team members and guests are fans of gaming and eSports, according to Baker.
“The ELeague partnership offered us a unique opportunity to be a part of building a program for eSports and CS:GO fans that would be truly integrated and engaging rather than a boiler plate ‘sponsored by’ program,” Baker said. “We’re very proud of how we were able to bring it to life. The fan response has been overwhelmingly appreciative of our authenticity and respect for the game, teams and players. We have absolutely loved reading the fan comments on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc.”
As an official marketing partner, Arby’s—along with Credit Karma and Buffalo Wild Wings—receive customized, contextual brand exposure spanning ELeague multi-screen coverage across TBS and digital platforms. Personalized brand campaigns include sponsor integration within the AdTrack feature, which facilitates uninterrupted game coverage; custom, contextual brand integrations and ad space within limited commercial time.
“Gaming is the heart of eSports and the fans don’t spend a lot of time with other formats, traditional or otherwise,” Baker said. “The challenge in connecting is the same in or outside of gaming: you have to be as much of a fan as they are and truly appreciate the experience.”
Although ELeague marks Arby’s first foray into eSports, the company has been doing its research.
“We certainly have explored and are exploring leagues, teams, players and more,” Barto said, addressing eSports sponsorship opportunities. “Of course there are differences—teams don’t have broadcast TV channels, but partnerships with leagues, teams and players are all viable for brands. It’s dependent on ideas and content that are valuable to the fans and a distribution platform that can reach them.”
Barto said Arby’s is currently evaluating its ROI on ELeague, as the first season recently wrapped up. But from the outset, the company was less concerned with a traditional ROI number and more concerned with a genuine engagement with the fans in a fan-to-fan way. When it comes to the second season of ELeague CS:GO, Baker said the approach will continue to be based around providing valuable content and experiences for fans.
Unlike Buffalo Wild Wings, which is already committed to the September Overwatch Open, Barto said a new game like Overwatch adds a broader fan base to ELeague and Arby’s is currently considering if their involvement would make sense. On the other hand, Baker said the overlap between the ELeague CS:GO demographic and Arby’s customer base is very strong. Currently, Arby’s is more focused on delivering video content around CS:GO eSports, but elements such as coupons and in-game skins are considerations for the future.
One thing’s for sure, Arby’s is sold on eSports. “The growth of livestreaming and eSports are as correlated as any content and distribution that I’m aware of,” Baker said.
ELeague Season 2 kicks off in October, opening the door for more eSports engagement with a young male audience that Arby’s and other brands are very interested in reaching.
Brands are exploring mobile 360-degree video experiences, allowing users to immerse themselves into an environment without the need for virtual reality headgear. YouTube now supports 360-degree video on mobile devices, as does Facebook, which opens opportunities to reach a global market of smart phone users.
While the age of new VR smart phones may be on the horizon, the rest of the world can enjoy VR-like experiences conveniently on the devices they already have, which is important to reach the largest market possible.
The applications for this technology are limited only to the imagination of the brand it represents. EPIX has released their first interactive 360-degree experience for the network’s espionage drama Berlin Station, which is set to launch this fall. The experience, accessible at BerlinStation.com, drops you into a VR-like experience that doesn’t require headgear to use and navigate, and thus, making it accessible for anyone.
“EPIX has a massive promotional plan surrounding [Berlin Station]. It is a major priority for the company,” said Shane Lindley, senior director of digital programming and product at EPIX. “It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this—across multiple touch points, really, like any other new major original series that’s being launched—from on-air promotion, in-theater promotion, magazines, television and definitely online and across all of our digital platforms.”
In April, Hilton Hotels and Resorts launched a 360 experience called “Our Stage, Your Story” that takes users on a virtual vacation to inspire future destinations. The New York Times has been providing 360-degree versions of their virtual reality films, such as 2016 election rallies, a virtual journey to Pluto and joining Cirque du Soleil on stage as they practice for a new Broadway show.
YouTube Gaming is taking advantage of 360-degree video capabilities to build their eSports viewership. “Can you imagine being at the League of Legends World Championship and having a 360 junk cam in the middle of the audience and feel like you’re right there watching?” Ryan Wyatt, director of content and partnerships at YouTube Gaming, told [a]listdaily.
Until the world’s population is walking around with VR like something out of a cyberpunk novel, creating an immersive experience for users without the need to purchase new equipment is a powerful way to reach a wider audience. In this way, 360 mobile video reaches the billions of viewers who can watch conveniently from the comfort of wherever they happen to be.
Telltale Games has a long reputation for making high-quality episodic adventure games based on popular television shows such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, but the company isn’t afraid to go beyond that. In 2013, it began a series called The Wolf Among Us, based on the award-winning Fables comic book. Telltale has even made games based on other games, including Tales from the Borderlands and Minecraft: Story Mode. Each series uses Telltale’s signature decision system, where the player’s choices shape events in subsequent episodes.
Given its history, it should be little surprise that Telltale was ready to launch a new series featuring one of the most iconic comic book characters in the world: Batman. The first episode Batman: The Telltale Series released earlier this week, and it gives players a chance to play to choose between being a brutal vigilante or a symbol of justice. Players must also balance between being The Dark Knight and his billionaire alter ego, Bruce Wayne.
Additionally, Telltale revealed a new feature called Crowd Play at the San Diego Comic-Con. With it, 2-24 players at home, or potentially thousands of people at events, can help make or take over game decisions by voting from mobile devices and web browsers. Although the feature is not yet ready for livestreaming due to the latency issues services like Twitch have, it has the potential to become an excellent live promotional tool by adding a social sense of multiplayer to these otherwise single-player adventure games. Telltale will include Crowd Play in all of its games going forward, including with the third season of The Walking Dead.
Job J. Stauffer, head of creative communications at Telltale Games, talks to [a]listdaily about releasing an all-new Batman game (especially in the wake of the acclaimed Arkham series) and why fans everywhere are in love with adventure games.
Job J. Stauffer, Telltale Games head of creative communications
What do you think makes Batman such an enduring character, and what are some of the unique challenges with working with such a well-known character?
Batman has been a pop-culture icon for over 75 years. With so many different iterations of the character across so many mediums: comics, film, television, games and more—there’s definitely been a constant reinvention in place. When different writers, directors, artists and storytellers are fortunate enough to take the reins and tell their own Batman stories, we often see familiar Batman themes, but always very different shades of those themes interpreted by each different artists’ take on the icon. From the darker, grittier vision of the character from writers like Frank Miller, to the more all-ages portrayal we’ve seen in projects like Batman: The Animated Series—there are just so many different versions of the character, and fans all seem to have their favorite iterations. Working with DC and Warner Bros., we’ve been thrilled to be able to create our own entirely original take on the universe as well, and that really gives us the creative space to make the project work as a Telltale game.
For us, allowing the player to role play as Bruce, giving them the chance to lean into a behavior that might reflect several different shades of the character they prefer, that’s key to this series. It’s about role-playing. It’s about giving the player the opportunity to think about the kind of Batman they want to be. Are they the type to find a wounded suspect in a warehouse and immediately beat them in the face them for answers? Or are they the Batman who will instead take a less violent approach, intimidating criminals psychologically to get the answers they need. The space for reinvention has really been at the heart of the character’s endurance over the years, and the chance to be the Batman the player wants to be is at the heart of our series.
Do you think movies such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or Suicide Squad help bring attention to Batman games?
We’re huge fans ourselves, and as an enduring pop-culture icon, we’re always thrilled to see the character and the universe on the big screen. We aren’t based on the current theatrical portrayals—or any others, for that matter—but certainly, when fans are excited in the theatrical space, there’s excitement in the interactive space and vice versa. While the groundswell of enthusiasm coming from all different angles is good for both sides of the business, the real winners here are the fans, and there’s no shortage of incredible content to consume on every screen.
Some would argue that the real stars of any Batman story are the villains, but it seems like Telltale has been slow to reveal them. What is the reasoning behind this?
Before premiering this week, you’d be correct in pointing out that we had yet to really see a lot of whom players may be facing off against in this series. We had seen characters like Harvey Dent, Selina Kyle, Carmine Falcone, and a very brief glimpse of Oswald Cobblepot in our launch trailer. Characters like Harvey and Oswald are perhaps better known by other names, Two-Face and Penguin respectively, but as this is a series, there’s still much to be discovered on if they’ll even move in that direction in the story. As a five-episode series, there’s space for character evolution into those roles, but there’s also an opportunity for players to potentially shape their paths to becoming their more villainous selves down the line—assuming they do at all.
Beyond that, there are still so many secrets we have around the corner that we wouldn’t dare spoil ahead of time. What we can say is that the door is open for more familiar names to show up, though they may not always be familiar faces. This is an interpretation that’s much more grounded in reality than fantasy, and we expect that players will see the more human side of our villains before they may see them taking to any extremes. A big part of the mystery of this story surrounds Bruce’s commitment to taking down Gotham’s most untouchable criminals, but it may also question everything he’s ever known about himself and the criminals at large.
Is there a different approach to promoting a Batman adventure game compared to The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones or Minecraft: Story Mode?
Diversifying our lineup of projects and creating for all different age groups across multiple story genres has definitely given us a wide variety of audiences to engage. That said, the approach is always the same message: We want to give fans the chance to role-play in the worlds that they love the most, with a rich story that’s completely tailored to them by the decisions they make in the shoes of complex and interesting characters. In the case of The Walking Dead, that message is conveyed to a mature audience, and for Minecraft: Story Mode, it’s the same message for all ages and families. These are worlds that we love ourselves, and when we open the door each time with a new series like Batman, we find that we’re also growing a core audience of new Telltale fans at the same time.
Players have seen Batman portrayed as an action game for years. Quite frankly, we’ve had some of the best action games ever made with the Arkham series, but we’re not an action game, we’re an interactive story that’s also full of action. For many Batman fans who’ve yet to experience a Telltale series, it’s a whole new way to play in the world that they love, and the door remains open for them to try hopping into another universe and experiencing an entirely different story genre with familiar mechanics. Games are, and always have been, defined into genres by their mechanics: shooters, racing games, puzzle, fighting etc. With film, television, comics and literature, story defines the genre. At Telltale, we see it the same way. The easiest definition of our games mechanically might be “adventure,” but in truth, our genres range from apocalyptic drama (The Walking Dead), to epic fantasy (Game of Thrones), neon-noir thriller (The Wolf Among Us), to sci-fi action/comedy (Tales from the Borderlands) and beyond.
In this way, as we continue to blur the line between games and interactive narrative. We see more of an approach that’s similar to a TV network, creating a destination for quality storytelling across a limitless variety of genres that’s available on every device. Console, PC/Mac, mobile, tablet and set-top boxes like Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV—the same places people can consume services like Netflix and HBO, we’re also able to reach the Batman audience with very little platform restriction for an experience that’s the same on every device.
Telltale recently revealed the Crowd Play feature, which will be included in Batman and all future Telltale Games. How have you seen social interaction impact Telltale Games’ experiences in the past?
The adventure genre was, for many years, a functionally single-player experience. Loving it so much, we all grew up playing with friends and family for fun, huddled around the same tiny computer screens, pointing and clicking together by deciding what to say and do as a group. By 2012 with The Walking Dead, we were delighted to hear from so many fans who discovered they liked to play our games at home with friends and family, watching the same screen and debating on decisions with the lead player. We even did this ourselves as a studio, playing with the cast and crew at launch parties and enjoying the social experience.
By 2014, we took things to a grand scale, premiering Tales from the Borderlands at the Alamo Drafthouse in Texas, not far from the home office of our partners at Gearbox. With some food and drinks in hand, the audience shouted, applauded, and debated decisions on the big screen while the game’s director was at the controls. The experience was unforgettable, and not the last time we’d do it. We hit the road and continued with more episode premieres at places like PAX in Seattle, with fans crying in the audience as they witnessed the story on screen.
In 2015, we premiered Minecraft: Story Mode at the legendary Cinerama Dome in Hollywood with a full red carpet procession of cast and YouTube stars in the audience for the ‘World’s Largest Let’s Play,’ as families, parents and kids cheered on the action. The experience was even streamed live on YouTube Gaming during its inaugural kick-off phase, and the series remains a huge hit on YouTube even as recently as this past June during E3 as the number one game on the network.
That passion and that energy that happens when people experience Telltale’s games together, that’s something we want to encourage as an option. Our stories can be deeply personal, but enabling players with the ability to share such a personal experience with friends and family is something we knew would work.
So beyond just sitting together and passionately shouting at a screen, we’ve just kicked off the new Crowd Play feature with Batman. We unveiled it after another session last month at San Diego Comic-Con where we played with host Greg Miller in front of hundreds of fans.
The feature allows for local groups of 2-to-24 or more to play at home by having their friends vote on story decisions and give feedback from their mobile devices using any web browser connected online as they follow the lead player on the main screen. We’re already seeing fans playing Batman together with friends and family, and we’re gearing up to take our games on tour for special events and engagements worldwide where we plan to service a live audience of 1,000 players or more. Formally taking Telltale’s stories into the multiplayer space is definitely exciting, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Right now, this is a local and social experience, and we love that. The live experience of playing with a huge audience in the same room is unforgettable. Beyond that, we are also working with networking partners to find solutions for making this viable to play across streaming services. Right now, the latency on streaming services means we’d have to slow down the drama and tension for remote viewing audiences to catch up on decisions, and we certainly don’t want to break the Telltale experience that way. But in the future, we expect to find solutions with our partners that would open the door for viewing audiences to play along live with their favorite streamers.
Has it been a challenge staying with the episodic format? Why do you think it continues to work for Telltale?
We think it’s a challenge each and every day we come into the studio and work our hardest to make it happen. Being up for that challenge—that’s just who we are. It continues to work for Telltale because it’s been in our DNA since the beginning in 2004, and we’ve don’t see ourselves stopping anytime soon. Audience participation in the development process is key here, and as we push forward episode-to-episode in live development, having an ear to the ground on what fans are thinking keeps us on our toes, and keeps our stories unpredictable.
What do you think of the growth of comic book characters across TV and movies?
We think there’s never been a better time to be a fan. This year in particular, working with DC/WB on Batman as well as with our partners at Skybound on our third season of The Walking Dead, there can be no denying that comics are at the backbone of popular arts and entertainment. We all grew up playing games, reading comics, and geeking out watching them come to life on screens big and small. For Telltale, being at the crossroads of all of those mediums, telling interactive stories based on comics played on game systems, tablets, TVs and even on the big screen at special events with huge audiences controlling the story—this is definitely our golden era, and we couldn’t be happier to be a part of it.
There’s a new report from adjust, a leading app analytics and attribution company, presents some intriguing facts and figures about apps in Apple’s App Store, and an idea of how to solve the ever-growing discovery problem. The issue is indeed a serious one—adjust’s study shows that what they term “Zombie Apps” constitute more than 90 percent of the apps in the App Store. In 2012, adjust coined the term “Zombie Apps” to describe “an app that doesn’t attract enough attention to rank on iOS App Store top lists and can’t be found organically—you’d need to search for the name in order to discover it.”
The Zombie App Problem
The problem has been serious for years, as anyone in the mobile app business can tell you, and adjust’s latest analysis concludes that the Zombie rate has reached a new peak. In other words, it’s getting worse. Fortunately, there are things that marketers can do to help the situation.
Before looking at solutions, it’s important to examine the data to understand the scope and nature of the problem. While app lists have varied in size over time, the rate of Zombie Apps has always risen. There are now more than two million apps available to download for iOS devices (this combines smartphone and tablet apps). From January 2014 to January 2016, the App Store grew 83 percent, from 890,000 apps to 1.63 million apps. June 2016 saw over 2 million apps, which means the number of apps grew 26 percent in the first six months of the year. Along with that increase in apps, the rate of Zombie Apps has increased from 72 percent in January 2014 to 90 percent in May of 2016.
So what’s causing apps to become Zombies, hidden away out of sight in the App Store? Essentially, it’s that many of the visible slots are being taken up by extremely popular apps. This can happen across different lists, and among different countries or categories.
“Multiple lists feature some of the best performing apps for extended periods of time, rather than being a true reflection of a single category,” adjust’s report noted. “This has the effect of potentially creating more Zombies, as while there are a fixed amount of ranks, there is an ever increasing number of apps available in the App Store.”
Major companies like Facebook are owning a number of spots in App Store lists. “Facebook owns four of the five most popular apps on smartphones accounting for 62 percent of all downloads on both stores in May, which shows how much list real estate a single brand can hold. Further down the lists, the problem is much more widespread than a single publisher, especially in far flung marketplaces,” the report stated.
Other Key Stats From The adjust Report
The App Store has grown 130 percent from 890,000 apps on January 1, 2014 to over 2.1 million available apps as of July 1, 2016.
The global Zombie rate increased from 72 percent percent in January 2014 to more than 87 percent in December, and reached 90 percent of all apps in May 2016.
The highest Zombie rate is the US English App Store at 90.9 percent, and lowest are the French markets with 85.2 percent being Zombie Apps.
What Can Be Done
The outlook for improvement isn’t good, unless Apple makes some changes to the App Store. We know change is coming to the App Store, with the promise of paid searches. That’s going to shake things up, for sure, and there will be many marketers who see that as a grand opportunity. Eventually, though, the prices of the best paid search terms will probably rise to approach the value, and that will leave the paid searches to accrue to the benefit of the companies with the biggest bankrolls.
The other possibility is a change in the way the App Store is curated. “With the sheer number of apps, and the dubious quality of some calling the rest into question, it’s a hard sell to get more people to try apps without a significant amount of word of mouth, and advertising spend too. By creating more ways to showcase the best Zombie Apps, the App Store could boost user exploration,” the report suggested.
Perhaps the implementation of New and Recommended lists could help, but there are curation possibilities that go well beyond this. One example is to see what Apple is already doing with its Beats 1 station. Here’s what Apple says about it: “Tune in to Beats 1. It’s free for everyone—even if you’re not an Apple Music member. Broadcasting live from cities around the globe, Zane Lowe and his handpicked team of renowned DJs create an eclectic mix of the latest and best in music.”
In other words, it’s offering you a curated list of music which helps in discovery. Why can’t this concept be extended to other categories like games? Imagine, if you will, experts in different genres of games who made sure to see every new game in that genre, and post regular updates about their favorite new titles.
Those game genre experts could create several different lists, included Recommended and What’s New, and possibly sub-genre lists (for instance, under the Sports genre the expert could list Football games). Short videos and/or articles could discuss new or interesting games, or perhaps why the expert chose the ones in the list. You’d think this would also be an excellent place for advertising, and perhaps for paid searches as well.
Apple, though, doesn’t seem to be all that interested in making things better for shoppers, at least if past experience with the App Store is any guide. Still, under Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, we may see more marketing-oriented improvements in the App Store.
There’s nothing that prevents some enterprising third party from creating and maintaining such a curated list of game apps, of course. Still, even if that third party already had a large audience, being located elsewhere than the App Store would mean those lists would not be seen by most of the App Store visitors. It could take months or years for such a site, (if ever!) to develop an audience even a reasonable fraction of the size of Apple’s App Store visitors.
Whether or not more curation comes to the App Store, it’s clear the discovery problem isn’t getting any better. Still, the runaway success of Pokémon GO shows that it’s still possible to find players, even without huge spending on marketing. All it takes is powerful brand combined with innovative game play that perfectly matches the IP, and perhaps some luck.
The fast-growing extreme sport of drone racing will be zooming into New York and onto ESPN3 this weekend when the U.S. National Drone Racing Championships fly into Governors Island.
ESPN’s first-ever drone racing event will be streamed live on ESPN3 and, following each event, will be televised as a one hour special on an ESPN network. The Drone Racing Association signed a multi-year, international media distribution deal with ESPN in April. DRA will be producing the content for ESPN.
The mixed, multi-reality practice known as drone racing is a made-for-TV spectacle that combines pilots competing head-to-head with small flying drones while wearing first-person-view goggles. The sport is currently experiencing an unprecedented rise in popularity thanks to backing from the likes of Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and his $1 million investment and brands like Mountain Dew, who dove deep into drone racing this summer through a sponsorship with DR1 Racing. Thanks to already having a 24/7 channel dedicated to the sport, drone racing is beckoning to become the next big racing sport alongside NASCAR and Formula 1. Friday will serve as its first serious measuring stick.
Dr. Scot Refsland, the chairman of the DRA responsible for the U.S. National Drone Racing Championships coming to fruition, joined [a]listdaily to talk about sport’s landmark day under the sun.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned throughout the months leading up to U.S. National Drone Racing Championships?
Creating any new industry, sport or innovation is more work than you could possibly imagine. But I’m extremely lucky to be surrounded by some very talented big thinkers who’re brilliant in highly ambiguous situations. And because of that, and the spirit of the drone sporting community, I’m honored to play a part in this big historical moment.
How do you sell fans on the idea of this new culture and sport of drone racing?
Currently the wow factor of this sport is when you put on the first-person-view goggles and you experience flying in the drone as if you were in the cockpit. The attraction is the basic human dream of being able to fly freely, and this is probably the closest thing to doing that without really doing it. The real challenge is to translate that into a fan experience, and that’s what Drone Nationals is focused on—creating an engaging experience for fans that involves both the thrill of racing and the sensation of being in the aircraft. The drone racing and drone sports culture is still unfolding, so by next year I’d imagine there’s going to be a whole new set of clothing, style and TV shows all catering to the drone sports culture.
What kind of an experience can attendees expect at the U.S. National Drone Racing Championships? How about viewers watching at home on ESPN?
We’re going to start with something familiar—like the feel and tempo of any traditional broadcast sport—but then add the element of live onboard camera views of the racers. By using leaderboards and onboard cameras on the drones, spectators will be able to not only follow the race like any other racing event, but also see the race from the racers’ perspectives. For attendees, we have several fun things we’re featuring. One is the ‘Aquarium,’ or a plexiglass structure in the middle of the track where people can watch the drones coming at them, and over them.
What needs to happen for drone racing to turn into the next big eSport?
Besides all the standard ecosystem and grassroots support for the sport, there will need to be big brands, and broadcast demand. Drone Nationals is the first experiment into whether non-endemic sponsors have an appetite, and whether there is engaging content for spectators. We’re not expecting to hit it out of the park. Even though drone racing has been growing at an astronomical rate, there are some fundamental performance indicators that need to be met. Having said that, the larger indicators have all been successfully met much faster than any other sport at this point.
How can sponsors like AIG and GoPro further grow the sport of drone racing?
Both AIG and GoPro see that drone sports are definitely here to stay and both partners see that their products and services go hand in hand with us. Both GoPro and AIG are very high visibility brands that touch a much larger synergistic audience. Between the two of them alone, drone sports can be accelerated almost one hundred times overnight to what it currently is.
Mountain Dew recently dived into drone racing, too. How is drone racing a good fit for a brand’s integrated marketing strategy?
Mountain Dew has targeted their brand to the more extreme and active lifestyle, and drone racing fits in well with their brand. It’s really great to see them jumping into the sport, and that means we’ll see more big beverage sponsors very soon.
7-Eleven recently introduced a fully autonomous delivery service. How can drones transform the way industries operate and serve their clients?
The potential for autonomous delivery that we see right now is merely the spear tip. We’re kind of at that point of when the first fax machine was invented, and realized a little later that once we introduced two fax machines working together, we couldn’t live without it.
Companies like Epson are making augmented reality eyewear specifically for pilots. How are other brands getting involved with drone racing? What are the best entry points?
This is probably the most interesting space in drone sports for a number of reasons. I did a talk recently titled, ‘It took me 30 years and 1 drone race to experience true virtual reality.’ I’m a 30-year veteran in the VR space, have a PhD in it, and within the last two years, there have been some massive steps forward. Next year is going to be the transformative year, where new forms of entertainment and technology will explode. Drone racing is set up specifically to benefit from this wave from both a pilot and spectator experience.
How will you measure success of the entire show?
Success has several yard sticks for this event, but our goal is to have all our partners, pilots and fans want more and continue onward with us to the World Championships in Hawaii in October.
What are you looking forward to the most come August 5?
Taking a benchmark of how fast the sport, pilots, fans, brands and the community have grown since the first one only a year ago. I remember saying, ‘Drone Nationals 2015 is like a neutron bomb. It just went off, now we have to wait and see what effect its waves will create.’
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Snapchat should be touched by Instagram’s latest initiative. On Tuesday, Instagram introduced “Stories,” a new way to share updates that expire in 24 hours.
The disposable Instagram Stories appear in a special section on a follower’s feed as a slide show. Instagram says the ability to post these messages will alleviate the worry of overposting. “Instead, you can share as much as you want throughout the day—with as much creativity as you want,” according to the site.
Brands are already jumping on board to test out the Instagram Stories feature, including General Electric (GE), Arby’s and Red Bull. Ironically, GE is using Instagram Stories to promote a Snapchat video series featuring a data-driven exploration into Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua.
In celebration of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Arby’s set about making the book’s character, Golden Snitch, out of sandwich packaging.
Red Bull let followers decide which epic photos to add to their feed in its first Instagram Stories campaign, with the winner, Pro MTB racer Finn Iles, shown below:
While Stories may be exciting for the average Instagram user, the new feature was no doubt aimed primarily at would-be advertisers. The numbers show that over one in four digital marketers have a plan to invest more money in Instagram over the next twelve months, per Business Insider. Snapchat, as popular as it is with its millions of viewers, is still the less-preferred choice for advertising, the study shows.
In other words, brands are more likely to invest in Instagram’s “snappy” new feature, as opposed to the social platform that inspired it. The photo-sharing app exceeds 500 million users and shares access to Facebook’s pool of three million advertisers who have the option to extend Facebook ad campaigns to Instagram.
Snapchat, although a valuable tool for marketers on its own, is considered less user-friendly when it comes to calculating return on investment due to the lack of on-board analytics tools.
The Instagram Stories tool is still very much in its infancy, so brands will need to experiment with campaigns to find what works.
With tabletop games experiencing a major surge in popularity, the world is in what you might call a “cardboard revolution.” Made further popular by brands like The Big Bang Theory and Geek and Sundry, the market is ripe for new and classic ways to gather around the dining room table.
In fact, Amazon says board game sales increased by a double-digit percentage from 2012 to 2013. Video game publishers are tapping into this newfound resurgence by trading in a controller for dice, cards and figurines.
Most recently, Bethesda and iD Software announced DOOM: The Board Game, currently in development by tabletop publisher Fantasy Flight Games. The new game, which will cost $79.99, will have up to five players embarking on missions across an asymmetrical board. Using cards, dice and figurines, players will either assume the side of Marines or hellish demons, each battling the other.
Gears of War, Uncharted, The Witcher, X-COM andStarcraft are just some of the other recent board game cross-promotions. These screen-to-table adaptations accomplish a few things—they increase brand awareness across multiple demographics, encourage personal experiences within those franchises, which helps create brand loyalty, and they tap into a thriving market.
While the video game industry is in no immediate danger of being outsold by their cardboard cousins, sales of tabletop games have continued to grow. Sales at hobby stores in the United States rose 15 to 20 percent in each of the last three years, according to ICv2, a trade publication that tracks the business.
ICv2 estimates that hobby board games in 2014 were around $160 million, and that card and dice games were around $60 million. When you include board game sales from KickStarter, a popular source for new tabletop franchises, the total market size estimate for 2015 ballooned to $1.2 billion.
To put that into perspective, the eSports market has reached nearly $1 billion in 2016 thus far, making cross-promotion between video games and tabletop games a very lucrative endeavor.
Indie developer Studio Wildcard has done a lot of things differently. The Seattle-based start-up self-funded ARK: Survival Evolved for $2 million using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4 and got the game into Steam Early Access last June. Since then, the game has grossed $150 million and has remained in the top-five bestselling games on Steam. And that’s been done with no downloadable content.
“We purposely wanted to get the game out before Jurassic World hit theaters last summer, and that definitely helped us get the word out in the early days,” said Jesse Rapczak, co-founder and co-creative director at Studio Wildcard. “People love dinosaurs and there’s never been a game that lets you play with dinosaurs like ARK does. You can play a dinosaur shooter or a dinosaur simulation game, or none of them. Not unlike Minecraft, people are learning different ways to play ARK with dinosaurs.”
The ARK community has steadily increased from an average of 40,000 concurrent players a year ago to an average of 55,000 concurrent players today on Steam. Peak concurrent users between Xbox One and PC have exceeded 130,000 users at times.
While the company has been focusing on finishing the final version of the game, it’s also grown from 12 to 25 employees. And the studio has stepped into eSports through a separate mod version of the game, Survival of the Fittest, which has taken off on its own.
“ARK originally didn’t have a competitive mode other than player-versus-player,” Rapczak said. “There wasn’t a short, time-scaled competitive mode until Survival of the Fittest, which introduced a Hunger Games-type competition. We created that mode as an example for the mod kit community, so other people in community could create other stuff.”
While the PC community has created over 4,000 mods, Wildcard ended up with a separate fan base through the stand-alone, free-to-play game that pits up to 72 players in a “last man standing” setting. Earlier this year, Wildcard launched the Survival League, which is based on rankings and cash prizes. The company recently flew the top eight teams from around the globe to compete in the $40,000 Summer Cup in China, which took place during ChinaJoy.
The competition spanned two days and was livestreamed on Twitch. Wildcard flew in top shoutcasters for the event and had support from local Chinese partners as well Reverb Communications.
Rapczak hopes to do future competitions at ChinaJoy, and his company is currently looking at TwitchCon as another prime show to host a Cup around.
“Seeing giant dinosaurs chasing people around is entertaining even if you don’t know all the rules,” Rapczak said.
ESports is on-going for the game through monthly tournaments with cash prizes. This Saturday, the July Survivor League Championship pits the top ranking ARK:Survival of the Fittest teams in each of three game modes against each other for more than $65,000 in prizes.
To date, the big established eSports teams haven’t made the move to ARK yet.
“We want those teams to come over and play ARK, but we haven’t seen a big influx from those teams yet,” Rapczak said. “The audience isn’t there yet in terms of the number of people playing the tournament rankings. We have a spectator mode and the ability for team identity to carry though tournaments.”
Rapczak said Wildcard is looking at new things to get players into the game like more maps, more tournament modes.
“A lot of players have requested more structure,” Rapczak said. “Having monthly finalists moving on to the next stage has been working. We could have more structured tournament mods and automated rules, where you win and move on to the next. We’re thinking about the Winter Cup now.”
Wildcard is also launching a paid mod contest targeting eSports next month.
“We want the community to come up with mods for eSports that include great new ways to play the game that might attract new players,” Rapczak said. “It will be our third mod contest. We usually give away $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 for the top three mod winners. In a way, the contest is an eSport in itself.”
Rapczak said the studio found in developing Survival of Fittest that they got the best feedback from the players themselves in terms of changes in the way the game plays and balances, opening up new strategies, and making the competition more fierce.
“We’re opening it up to community to let them do more things with the content and see where the eSports mode of ARK is going from here,” Rapczak said. “Our central team is working on finishing Survival Evolved.”
In order to focus on the main game, Wildcard has brought Survival of the Fittest back into the paid fold. Anyone who owns the free-to-play mod previously can continue to play it, but new gamers will need to purchase ARK: Survival Evolved to receive the eSports mode. This also allows gamers to mod the Survival of the Fittest for the first time.
“Going forward, we want players to have the tools to change things around,” Rapczak said. “With this mod contest we’ll see what happens with new things we want to do around the console release.
ARK: Survival Evolved will launch this winter across all platforms. Rapczak said his team is launching new content over the next month and getting the final features into the game.
“We’re looking at the final phases of bug fixing and polish,” Rapczak said. “We’re looking at both digital download as well as a retail launch.”
