Here are some of the top personnel moves in marketing over the last week.
Heidi Browning Becomes NHL Executive VP And CMO
To help further promote the growth of the National Hockey League, Heidi Browning has been named executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the NHL. Browning joins the league after leading digital marketing strategies for companies such as Fox Interactive Media, Universal McCann and (most recently) Pandora. In her role, Browning will focus on digital and social initiatives and developments, be responsible for executing the League’s marketing campaigns, and incorporate new marketing technologies to promote the NHL and broaden the reach of both its traditional and digital channels.
Gabe Spitzer Joins FOX Sports
Gabe Spitzer has been named to the role of executive producer, original programming and branded content at FOX Sports. According to the announcement, Spitzer will oversee “current original programming as well as the development, acquisition and execution of short and long form documentary content. He is also the liaison between filmmakers and FOX Sports league partners, working across departments and platforms to maximize assets.” Spitzer has won multiple Emmy Awards as a director and producer, working on projects for HBO, NBC, FOX and ESPN.
Fox TV Group Appoints Robert Barron CFO
In a continuing effort to consolidate operations within the combined network-studio group, Robert Barron has been promoted to EVP and chief financial officer for Fox Television Group. There, he will manage the finance and accounting operations for all FTG divisions.
Philippe Le Floc’h Appointed FIFA Chief Commercial Officer
Philippe Le Floc’h has been appointed as FIFA’s new chief commercial officer as part of the organizations ongoing restructuring of its administration. As stated in the announcement, Le Floc’h will “oversee all commercial activities, heading up both the Marketing and TV sub-divisions and helping drive the organization’s commercial performance.”
Paul Buccieri Becomes President Of A+E Studios
A&E and History president, Paul Buccieri has been promoted to president of A+E Studios & A+E Networks portfolio group. Buccieri became president of A&E and History in 2014, and in his new role, he will be in charge of all of the business aspects for the A+E brand portfolio. The portfolio includes A&E, History, Lifetime, FYI and LMN.
Dennis Camlek Joins National Geographic As EVP
National Geographic Global Networks has hired Dennis Camlek as its executive vice president for strategy and consumer marketing. Prior to Nat Geo, Camlek was senior vice president in strategic media planning, investment and placement at Turner Media Group. In his new role, Camlek will oversee programming-specific marketing efforts in the United States, in addition to working with the network’s marketing heads in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Bayshore Networks Appoints Kirby Wadsworth As Chief Marketing Officer
Cybersecurity firm, Bayshore Networks, has appointed Kirby Wadsworth in the newly created role of chief marketing officer. Wadsworth’s previous position was as vice president of global marketing for F5 Networks, Inc. At Bayshore Networks, he will be responsible for all marketing activities, including brand development, demand generation, product marketing and corporate communications.
Pinterest Picks Todd Morgenfeld As New CFO
Pinterest has hired its very first chief financial officer, Todd Morgenfeld, who previously served as Twitter’s vice president of finance. Morgenfeld adds his expertise and experience as Pinterest expands its advertising and e-commerce tools.
The Weather Company Names Jordan Bitterman As Chief Marketing Officer
Jordan Bitterman joins the Weather Company as its CMO and will oversee all of the company’s marketing teams. He was previously the chief strategy officer for North America at the media and marketing service firm, Mindshare.
Bela Bajaria Joins Netflix As VP Of Content
Formerly an NBCUniversal chief, Bela Bajaria, has become Netflix’s vice president of content. In this role, Bajaria will lead the company’s television- and film-licensing efforts in addition to co-productions with US Networks. Other responsibilities include developing unscripted programming for Netflix. While working at NBCUniversal, Bajaria sold three series to Netflix including The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Master of None and upcoming Gypsy.
Brendan Countee Moves From Hulu To Showtime
Showtime Networks has hired Brenden Countee as its VP of original programming. Countee comes from Hulu, where he was the head of comedies and oversaw the development and production of streaming shows including Casual, The Mindy Project, Difficult People, the upcoming Future Man.
For many, this is the week that will fully define virtual reality’s first year as a major trend. Although premium headsets such as the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive launched earlier this year, their high price points (not including the cost of powerful PCs and video cards need to operate them), a general shortage of compelling content, and other issues have significantly slowed sales. On the other end of the affordability scale are mobile VR viewers, including the Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and the upcoming Daydream View headsets. Although many agree that mobile viewers are entertaining and offer a strong sense of presence, they pale in comparison to the premium experience.
Therefore, Sony’s PlayStation VR seems like the ideal compromise. Although the headset isn’t cheap at $400, it’s the least expensive of the premium headsets, and it will work on any PlayStation 4 system, which currently has an install base of over 45 million. Furthermore, Sony has worked closely with developers to make sure that there will be over 30 games launching for the headset, including Rise of the Tomb Raider: Blood Ties, Battlezone, and Batman: Arkham VR, with plenty more to come. In total, there are almost 100 games confirmed so far, and many are expected to release before the year’s end.
With accessibility and content both taken care of, and critics giving positive early reviews, the only thing that’s left to do is make sure everyone that owns or is thinking of getting a PlayStation 4 console is aware of the headset and its experience. Unfortunately, one of the biggest challenges VR faces is that the experience can’t be adequately described in a trailer. People need to experience it to understand it.
Retail stores including GameStop and Best Buy have eagerly set aside space to provide customers with a hands-on experience. Sony has brought the device to major video game conventions such as E3 and Gamescom. In one instance, Sony partnered with Taco Bell create a two-day pop-up VR arcade in New York City, where customers had a chance to win a PlayStation VR. Awareness efforts appear to be paying off, considering how GameStop stated that the device was the “quickest sellout in GameStop’s history,” during the company’s second-quarter financial earnings call for the fiscal year 2016. In fact, the headset has been sold out across all major retailers since it first when up for pre-order last March.
However, this success could lead to other problems down the road. Both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive suffered shipping problems after launching, resulting in many pre-order customers not getting their headsets for weeks or months past their expected delivery date. Clearly, Sony can take steps to avoid delivery problems, but the company’s main issue is that it hasn’t announced when the device will be restocked.
The best way to promote a new console or platform is through word-of-mouth and playing it at a friend’s house, which is hard to do if your friends don’t have it. Demand for the PlayStation VR could turn out one of two ways: it could mirror that of the Nintendo Wii, where low stock created a fervor for the console. However, that would require a kind of “killer app” to help sell the system to a large audience the way Wii Sports did. The other, more likely, scenario is that Sony will have to maintain a strong post-launch promotion throughout the holiday season so that customers remain aware of the device until more PSVRs are made available. It will also be important to keep promoting the PSVR past the new year, when both game and hardware sales traditionally see a post-holiday dip. Otherwise, it could risk losing the launch period momentum.
Sony is in the unique position of capping an end to “the first year of VR,” and the success of the PSVR will be seen by many as a sign of whether VR technology will truly take off or be seen as a passing fad. Unfortunately, the company also has a reputation for not giving peripherals such as the PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Move and PlayStation Eye the marketing attention they needed to take off. The measurement of success can’t be taken until sometime next year, when more games and headsets are available. Until then Sony will have to commit to promoting the PlayStation VR almost much as it does the PlayStation 4 console itself to stay at the top of shopping lists next holiday season.
While a whole slew of games are primed to launch this week, particularly on the PlayStation VR (PSVR), the biggest, baddest promotions go to these two AAA titles. From dangling a Jeep Wrangler from the top of a building to burning rubber in its very own drift car, these are the top game releases and promotions for the week of October 10.
Gears of War 4
Microsoft is celebrating the 10th Anniversary of its hit Gears of War franchise by ushering in a new era and telling gamers, “Never fight alone.” This slogan not only applies to the game’s story, but encourages multiplayer action, especially the Gears of War Pro Circuit eSports program. In addition to the usual Day One perks like gold-colored weapons and exclusive, playable characters, those who ordered the Ultimate Edition were able to begin playing the game four days before everyone else. Microsoft has maintained a strong convention presence since the game’s announcement during E3 with hands-on demos, panels and even collectible cards that unlock exclusive items in-game. The collectible cards even come with their own dedicated mobile app to help manage and collect them all. Gears of War 4 is the first Play Anywhere title for Xbox One and featured as the first Xbox One S themed bundle, making this iconic franchise the face of Microsoft’s new console campaigns.
Microsoft certainly doesn’t “fight alone,” especially when it comes to marketing. A movie is currently in development at Universal Studios, with Scott Stuber (Ted, Central Intelligence) and Dylan Clark (Planet of the Apes) attached as producers. As it has done in previous years, UFC 204 is sponsored by Gears of War 4 and Conan O’Brien tried his hand at the game for a Clueless Gamer sketch. An art exhibit was held in California for a special, 2-day event featuring concept art,original art pieces, life-sized replicas of armor and a debut of the game’s original soundtrack by Grammy-and-Emmy-award-winning composer, Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones, Pacific Rim). A Formula Drift car, driven by Matt Field was featured in the championship race on October 8. Other notable partnerships include a special edition of the HyperX CloudX Revolver gaming headphones, collectible figures by Funko Pop!, PlayArts KAI and McFarlane Toys, life-size lancer rifles from PDP and a special concept art book with Dark Horse. A special partnership with clothing brand, Undefeated resulted in an exclusive line of Gears-themed goods set to appear in a pop-up store in Los Angeles on October 11.
The launch itself has been accompanied by many, many livestreams that include developers and influencers alike, giveaways and special announcements (such as the film adaptation). The frontline marketing continued by creating a showcase of fan tattoos for Gears of War, which helped cement an emotional bond for the franchise, and fans are able to vote on new armor that will become free DLC. On Twitter, the #GearsOfWar4 hashtag comes with a sponsored emoji of COG soldier, gear-shaped dog tags to get players psyched for combat. As if the gameplay wasn’t amped enough, gamers can help keep the marathon going with specially-designed cans of Rockstar energy drinks. Anyone who purchases Gears of War 4 for Xbox One by December 31, 2016 will receive digital download tokens to obtain a free copy of Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment backward-compatible for the Xbox One.
Rise of the Tomb Raider 20 Year Celebration
Square Enix, meanwhile, is celebrating 20 years of Tomb Raiderin a big way with a scavenger hunt, concert series and a ton of in-game bonuses. As the most iconic female video game character of all time, Lara Croft represents adventure and a whole lot of memories for gamers everywhere. Tapping into this nostalgia, while keeping Lara relevant is key to Square Enix’s marketing strategy. Those who pre-ordered the game, for example, can play Lara with a number of classic character models to bring back all those gaming feels. Bringing Lara into the future, meanwhile, involves PlayStation VR with a special, stand-alone experience called Blood Ties—allowing players to explore and interact with Lara’s manor in a whole new way.
“With the 20 Year Celebration, we wanted to bring Lara’s Manor into the modern timeline,” Chris Johnson, associate brand manager at Crystal Dynamics told [a]listdaily at NYCC. “When players first got the cinematic experience of Lara in her childhood home, fans went totally nuts. Now is the perfect time to bring this to life.” Another DLC pits Lara Croft against zombies in Lara’s Nightmare, although not in VR. During the New York Comic-Con, Square Enix unveiled a special collaboration with Player Piano—a beautiful medley of Tomb Raider music from across the decades.
Speaking of conventions, Lara Croft remains one of the most popular cosplay choices every year, so Square Enix came up with a fun excuse to pull out the costumes. During Paris Games Week on October 29, Square Enix is attempting a Guinness World Record for “The Most People Dressed as Lara Croft” in one place, offering prizes and other incentives for fans to join in. In the spirit of adventure (and for those who prefer to drive rather than rock climb and flip around their real-world environments), fans can enter to win “Prize of the Tomb Raider,” a 2016 Jeep Wrangler. Those in New York for the big comic convention could even witness a real Jeep Wrangler hanging from a building! To further celebrate the adventures you’ll have, Square Enix teamed up with comic book artist, Andy Park to create exclusive art and an in-game outfit called “Woman Vs. Wild.”
Much like Gears of War 4, Rise of the Tomb Raider also features collectible in-game cards that unlock modifiers and game-modes for enhanced playing experiences. Those who play during the first week of the game’s launch will receive 10,000 in-game credits to spend on these cards.
GSN Games, which is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, has launched the free-to-play Sparcade app on the iOS App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices. The app features custom versions of classic games like Pac-Man, Scrabble, Tetris Burst, Solitaire TriPeaks and Wheel of Fortune designed for competitive play. While all of the games are free-to-play against friends and families using tokens, Sparcade has been designed to allow anyone of legal age to bet real money on any competitive match.
Greg Canessa, senior vice president of GSN Games, told [a]listdaily all of these classic games have been designed as “games of skill” so that there’s an even playing field for competition. For example, Tetris Burst offers an asynchronous three-minute tournament where everyone gets the same blocks in same order, whether in a head-to-head match or in a tournament of up to five players.
Maya Rogers, president and CEO of Blue Planet Software, said making Tetris a part of Sparcade, where players can use their skills to compete for cash prizes, really ups the stakes and adds a new level of competition among the Tetris community.
Bandai Namco Entertainment America worked on this version of Pac-Man, which offers a classic mode with four ghosts and a Challenge mode where there are hundreds of map formats, and each tournament gets the same maps in the same order so players can’t them. Players spin the big wheel and compete to solve the same puzzles faster than their opponents for real money in Wheel of Fortune. Scrabble offers a quick session competition where players are given identical boards and letters to work with.
“By launching with games that people already know and love, Sparcade is tapping into the popularity and ubiquity of casual games on mobile as a platform, at the same time the rise of eSports and competition has moved into the zeitgeist of gaming,” Canessa said.
Canessa noted that eSports began with hardcore multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games such as Dota 2 and League of Legends and has moved to mid-core titles like Clash Royale, Hearthstone and Vainglory in mobile.
“If you look at mobile games today that are beginning to take a foothold in the world of eSports, the apps serve as the ‘proving ground’ where both casual and competitive players enjoy the games, and from there sprouts organized events and challenges,” Canessa said. “Over time, it is our intention to grow Sparcade in a similar way. We’re laser-focused on building Sparcade as an app with the best names in gaming and a rich meta-game to fuel the community. Once we accomplish this, we know that brands and sponsors will take notice and reach these consumers.”
Canessa believes the initial slate of games have the potential to unlock competitive communities for these franchises that have been passively building up over decades. “In many ways, these games represent the earliest forms of what we consider eSports today,” Canessa said. “Scrabble has a substantial community that plays the physical board game competitively, with leagues, professionals and the North American Scrabble Championship. Tetris has been hosting world championships for years, and Pac-Man has a long history of competitive play and world champions, dating back to the coin-op arcades. So, in many ways, the essence of competition that modern eSports deliver, have been around in some form or fashion for these games for a long time.”
Canessa said partners like Bandai Namco, Hasbro, Tetris Company and others see the long-term potential that Sparcade represents to coalesce competitive communities around their games. To qualify as an eSport, you really need three things: 1) a great game, built for competition from the ground-up, 2) an audience and community willing to watch, and 3) pro players that represent the “best of the best” at what they play.
“We know if we nail the first one, and focus our efforts there, the rest will follow,” Canessa said. “We absolutely see the opportunity here, but we want to take a smart and thoughtful approach to creating an eSports market derived from Sparcade and focus on features that will delight our users and the community, and not spout out buzzwords prematurely and let the cart get ahead of the horse on this.”
Canessa said for a brand or a sponsor, the opportunity is to tap into a community of mainstream players in Sparcade that already have a known frame of reference for competing in these games. “Sparcade broadens the opportunity significantly by enabling players to compete in these games with the mass market, wherever and whenever they’d like,” he said.
The Sparcade app can be played without using real money, including Friend Challenges that offer head-to-head competition. Sparcade offers a metagame that mixes goals and unlockables with social interaction. Completing objectives, like eating 250 ghosts in Pac-Man, will earn players Fame Points, which will unlock special powers to help them earn additional tokens. The tournament gameplay won’t be impacted by power-ups, in order to keep an even playing field.
“With the metagame and social layer offering collectibles, a progression system with achievements earned per game and loot boxes that you open up with different cosmetic and utility value, there’s a lot for fans to engage with,” Canessa said.
Canessa was the creator of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade. Prior to spending the last two years creating Sparcade, he had helped PopCap launch its first mobile games and worked at Blizzard to reboot Battle.net. He also Activision’s mobile division for three years, launching Call of Duty and Skylanders games on iOS and Android.
Canessa said with the launch of Sparcade, GSN is offering players a chance to compete and build their skills in the first wave of games they develop additional more iconic franchises for skill-based play and roll out new features in the future.
Mobile game publisher GREE International Entertainment (GIE) has added a new game to its portfolio, acquiring developer PerBlu’s DragonSoul mobile franchise. The humorous role-playing game has over nine million players and has been a critical hit with over 50,000 five-star reviews on iOS and Android. The game joins existing GIE franchises like Knights & Dragons and Modern War.
Andrew Sheppard, CEO of GIE, told [a]listdaily the company’s product and marketing strategy is focused on differentiated itself in the market space.
“A lot of folks are leaning into existing franchises or licensed IP,” Sheppard said. “Having previously built licensed IP when I was at Kabam, it wasn’t right for where the market is today. Our approach is to focus on producing original IP. It’s the most difficult challenge, but it’s an approach that’s important for us to pursue.”
Shawn Conly, vice president of marketing at GIE, saidDragonSoul has a strong brand center because it’s a very tongue-in-cheek game with playful humor and memorable characters.
“Those are great marketing points in broadcast and other media,” Conly said. “There’s a huge opportunity in the video space for us to further leverage the work the developer has done, especially in Europe and other markets across the globe.”
The biggest market today for DragonSoul is the US, but Conly said the game has a lot of room to grow. He said GIE is taking great care of current customers, while enhancing the live operations of the game to provide more entertainment experiences.
Conly said television commercials are a big focus for GIE today, since the market for user acquisition (UA) ads has increased by two-to-four times depending on which network a company uses.
“It’s challenging to get cost-effective installs through UA ads alone,” Conly said. “TV allows us to reach people who aren’t responsive to mobile ads, but they also help lift the brand and make those UA ads more effective when the two are running in conjunction. Television is also a great reminder medium, which can connect with players who may have left and get them back in the game.”
Conly said GIE tested this coupled approach with Knights and Dragons, a three-year-old game, in Europe and saw positive effects.
“We’re expecting with a current game like DragonSoul for it to be more effective,” Conly said.
GIE is also expanding its reach with YouTube and Twitch influencers. The company recently worked with Clash Royale YouTuber Chief Pat, Gaming with Molt and Godson to promote its game, League of War. They brought these influencers in and gave them a tour of the studio and previewed the game so they could get excited about it.
“We’ve also worked with agents, since a lot of YouTubers are aggregated with agents and you can put together a network of people that way,” Conly said.
Conly sees a huge growth potential for Twitch, which traditionally hasn’t been focused on the mobile space but has been changing rapidly.
“We like to be early to the curb with these types of things,” Conly said. “We’re thinking about how to approach the Twitch influencer market.”
Conly, who previously served as vice president of global advertising and branding at Electronic Arts, said EA was an early adopter of community marketing. They’d find the biggest players of a game and give them the VIP treatment.
“We’re taking a page out of that book,” Conly said. “It’s fairly new for the mobile gaming space.”
DragonSoul also opened up the ability to play on the game’s humor.
“In the mobile space, gameplay on a Youtube video can look similar from one game to another, so this brand’s tone and humor can differentiate the product,” Conly said. “Humor is hard to do well, but DragonSoul does that wonderfully. If you can latch onto that and get people to smile while they’re seeing great gameplay content, that’s a win-win.”
This week, we take a look at advertising across social media channels, times of day and what not to do when trying to attract new customers.
Mobile Game Madness
According to Newzoo, global app revenues will reach $44.8 billion in 2016 and grow to $80.6 billion by 2020. There are three billion smartphone and tablet devices actively used across the world, according to the report, and Apple is the global leader with a market share of 34.8 percent. Samsung is the second-most popular device at 23.2 percent. Chinese brands account for seven of the top ten global brands, a testament to the sheer size of the Chinese market, which accounts for 30 percent of the actively used mobile devices worldwide.
Tweet Up And Take My Money
Twitter has released some interesting data to encourage brands to respond to their customers on the social media platform. Research found that when a customer Tweets at a business and receives a response, they are willing to spend 3 to 20 percent more on an average-priced item from that business in the future. Twitter users are also 44 percent more likely to share their experience with others and 30 percent more likely to recommend that brand.
23 Percent Of Mobile Purchasers Buy On Mobile Devices Every Week
A new study by IAB found that mobile users are not only buying, but discovering their purchases through advertising. The study, which surveyed mobile users in 19 countries, found that 76 percent of mobile purchasers had engaged with a mobile ad in the last six months. Thirty-three percent clicked on the ad to find out more information, while 28 percent clicked to visit the advertisers’ websites, and 21 percent clicked to purchase. The highest levels of clicking to purchase originated from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the UK and the US.
The Best Part Of Waking Up Is . . .
According to a recent study by YooMe, internet viewers are more open to viewing ad content and making purchases in the morning than other times of day. Fifty-nine percent of respondents were more receptive to viewing ads in the morning versus 45 percent in the evening. The same goes for making purchases—purchase intent is highest at 11 percent from 3:00 a.m. to 11:59 a.m., followed by the night from 9:00 p.m. to 2:59 a.m. at 5 percent, and trailed by the afternoon from 12 p.m. to 4:59 p.m. and evening from 5 p.m. to 8:59 p.m. at 4 percent each.
Instagram Is Sportier Than You Think
Teenagers may be staring at their phones all day, but a lot of them are interested in sports, according to Instagram. In fact, 30 percent of the top 100 accounts teens follow on the social platform are sports-related. During New York Advertising Week, James Quarles, Instagram’s vice president and general manager of monetization said that one out of every three Instagram users follows a sports account—about 165 million accounts.
Programmatic Is Where It’s At
According to eMarketer, programmatic advertising (buying ads through a computer program) will account for 73 percent of all US digital display ad spending in 2016, and 21 percent of that will go to YouTube. Programmatic’s share of US digital display ad spending will continue to climb over the next couple of years, reaching 82 percent or $37.8 billion by 2018.
Social Marketing: Good Buy Versus Goodbye
A study by Sprout Social asked more than 1,000 social media users across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to see what makes them want to click “buy” versus “unfollow.” With 85 percent of those surveyed following brands on social, over 75 percent said that they made purchases because of something they saw on social media. Don’t be too pushy or try too hard to be “hip to the youngsters,” though, because 46 percent named “too many promotional messages” as the number one reason for unfollowing a brand. 29.9 percent named the use of slang or jargon that doesn’t fit the brand as another major turn off. Discretion is totes, bae.
Does The Bell Toll For Pre-Roll?
The latest Ooyala Video Index, “The Rise Of The Mid-Roll,” found that mid-roll ads had a 90 percent average completion rate, compared to 78 percent for pre-roll and 65 percent for post-roll. The success of mid-roll completion rates may be attributed to the viewer already being invested in the video content they are watching, and therefore more willing to watch the entire ad. Another explanation offered by Ooyala is that mid-roll ads look and feel like watching TV where people are already accustomed to breaks in the video content they’re watching.
Technology And Refreshment Rule The World
Interbrand has released its 2016 Best Global Brands report identifying the world’s 100 most valuable brands. Apple and Google hold the top two spots for the fourth year in a row, with Coca-Cola coming in at number three, and Microsoft at number four. Overall, the most valuable global brands are dominated by the automotive and technology industries with a few newcomers. Tesla and Dior entered the top 100 brands this year at number 89 and number 100, respectively.
Advertisers Get More Social (And Influential)
Gartner’s 2016 Digital Marketing Channel Survey revealed that 80 percent of social marketers have or will have social advertising programs, and 28 percent will have employee and/or customer advocacy (influencer) programs in place within 12 months. “Influencer marketing programs that identify, engage and provide a value exchange between brands, industry thought leaders, content creators, celebrities and media outlets are a prime way to scale advocacy in social,” said Jay Wilson, research director at Gartner, in a statement. “These programs are also on the rise as a hedge against declining reach of brand posts.”
When you think of eSports, games like Call of Duty or League of Legends probably come to mind, but what about mobile bowling? Skillz is a company that allows any mobile game developer to integrate competition into its business model, allowing gamers to compete for real money at any skill level. With eSports on the rise and poised to reach $493 million in 2016, non-traditional brands are encouraging competition among their communities and reaching that lucrative gamer market.
Can you be the world champion in crushing candy? Turns out that casual gamers are really into competition. In a report released Thursday, Skillz announced that its developer partners are generating $0.92 in average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU), which is over eight times the industry average of $0.11. The ARPDAU of top games using the Skillz platform is as high as $1.59, the company reports.
You can be an eSports champion in shooting bubbles, and that’s great news for developer Ilyon Dynamics. “From a developer standpoint, we’ve seen that implementing eSports tournaments is one of the most powerful tools for increasing engagement, retention and revenue,” said Yonatan Erez, CEO and founder of Ilyon Dynamics (Bubble Shooter).
Using the Skillz platform, Erez reports an increase in day-one user retention by 21 percent and day 30 retention by 19 percent, which has led to a “thriving and immersed community.”
In addition to revenue, Skillz also reports that adding eSports to an app results in longer time spend in-game. Skillz players spend an average of 58 minutes a day competing in tournaments, the company said, adding that this figure is nearly double the 33-minute casual mobile gaming industry average.
“eSports are often associated with first-person shooters and multiplayer online battle arenas, but the industry is evolving beyond its initial genres,” said Andrew Paradise, CEO and founder of Skillz. “We built Skillz to bring eSports to the 2.1 billion mobile gamers worldwide, and enable all developers to create sustainable businesses while providing players with more meaningful competitions. Multiplayer competitions are the next evolution of mobile gaming, and seeing our game developer partners reach new heights using Skillz technology validates the power of mobile eSports to build the future of gaming.”
So, what makes a game fun to play competitively? “There are three key elements that make an eSport: multiplayer, tournaments and streaming,” Skillz told [a]listdaily. “Virtually any game genre could work well with an added eSports element, or some combination of the three.”
Adding eSports to a mobile game is a proven method that’s growing in popularity worldwide. Over Fourth of July weekend, Tencent created a tournament for Clash Royale that resulted in more than one million additional gamedownloads and more than $1.5 million in additional revenue.
While this was a temporary tournament, Skillz offers mobile eSports year-round and is poised to become a $4 billion business by 2018.
Coca-Cola has been at the forefront of connecting with eSports fans, having worked with Riot Games on its League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) since 2013. The brand has done everything from help launch an amateur league to hosting thousands of fans in movie theaters around the globe to watch the League of Legends world championship game.
With the big game returning to the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Oct. 29, Matt Wolf, vice president of entertainment at Coca-Cola, said the company is celebrating eSports and the community of fans at the League of Legends World Finals Cinema with viewing parties across the US.
As part of this activation, Coke has enlisted Maingear to build a “1ofONE” Coke ESports custom gaming PC. Wolf said fans will have an opportunity to win this gaming machine by attending one of the cinema viewing parties.
“We believe that ice-cold Coca-Cola is the perfect refreshment for gamers and this custom experiment was the brain child of our eSports team in partnership with our friends at Maingear and our colleagues in Coca-Cola Design,” Wolf said. “It’s an innovative and fun play off the basic PC that our gamers know so well.”
Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of MAINGEAR, said Coca-Cola has been using its Coke Esports division to make a big push to support the growing eSports scene.
“They decided that they wanted to do something huge and out of the ordinary by creating a totally unique, one-of-a-kind PC gaming system,” Santos said. “Similar to Maingear’s recent partnerships with Razer and HP, Coke chose Maingear because we simply build the best PCs in the industry. At the same time, we were in the planning staging for what would become our 1ofONE initiative—a program to bring 100 percent fully custom, heavily modded PCs to market on a level never done before by a PC manufacturer.”
Santos said Coke trusted Maingear with the freedom to use its own expertise in system design and water-cooling to create this gaming PC.
“Maingear developed the necessary chassis modifications and intricate cooling system in our workshop, while working with Coke’s in-house creative team on the custom luxury automotive paint finish on the exterior,” Santos said.
The PC boasts an Intel i7-6950X 10-Core CPU, dual NVIDIA GTX 1080 graphics cards, a HyperX Fury 16GB DDR4-2666 and a Samsung 950 Pro 512GB M.2 NVMe. But the focal point of this unique rig is a real 500 milliliter Coke bottle for the centerpiece of the build.
Santos said the bottle was modified to serve as the coolant reservoir for the water-cooling system. As an added detail, Maingear was able to color match its in house blended coolant mixture to perfectly match the color of Coca-Cola.
“With Coke’s global reach, rabid fan base and commitment to support eSports, this collaboration is a natural fit, and will bring Maingear to entirely new audiences that had no idea the level of quality and degree of customization that is within reach to them,” Santos said.
Wolf said Coke is thrilled with the overwhelming positive response the announcement of the PC has generated across social media.
“This PC is a nod to our biggest fans,” Wolf said.
It’s also something that will stand alone in the eSports realm.
“We don’t have plans at this point to produce additional machines,” Wolf said.
Santos said this is the latest eSports activation for the company.
“Maingear has supported eSports for years, and has been the system of choice for countless eSports athletes,” Santos said. “In addition, Maingear systems have powered some of the biggest Esports tournaments, including last year’s Dota International, where the tournament was run entirely on Maingear X-Cube systems.”
The Thursday keynote for Oculus Connect 2016 offered new insight into the Touch, what kind of games we can expect to play VR, and even some new headphones.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off a a three-person chat in VR that sent them to Mars, under the sea and even into Mark’s home to check on the dog. By supporting the VR ecosystem it helped jumpstart, Oculus hopes to create a thriving world of endless, virtual possibilities in gaming and beyond.
Reach Out And Touch A Release Date
The Oculus Touch controller finally received a launch date of December 6 and will be priced at $199. Pre-orders for the Touch open on October 10 separately or bundled with games, VR Sports Challenge and The Unspoken. Both titles will support room-scale virtual reality experiences.
Oculus Does The Timewarp
New “Asynchronous Timewarp” and “Asynchronous Spacewarp” features aim to reduce judder and keep Rift frame rate at 90 frames per second, which Oculus feels is the minimum needed for good VR. As a result of Timewarp features, new minimum PC specs have been announced, allowing Rift to work on PCs as affordable as $499.
Bring On The Video Games
Three new Touch compatible titles were announced alongside the December release date, all clearly designed to make the most of the new controller interface. The first title is Arktika.1 from 4A Games, a sci-fi adventure in which players fight off bandits in “Old Russia” during a post-apocalyptic ice age.
Lone Echo from Ready At Dawn solves the problem of accidentally walking into a wall with your Oculus headset on by turning off the gravity. Lone Echo casts the player as Jack, an artificially intelligent robot who helps astronauts run and maintain a space station that orbits Saturn. Rather than walk, the player must use their hands to climb and pull their way around the station.
Robo Recall is the first full-VR game from Epic Games, pitting players against rogue robots. The free title, which launches in 2017, features a series of increasingly challenging missions with leaderboard support via the Oculus SDK, as well as a sandbox mode for players to hone their robot destruction skills.
Oculus also announced that there will be at least 35 new VR game titles upon launch of the Touch. The company further revealed a collaboration with Walt Disney Studios to create VR experiences with some of Disney’s “most beloved characters” to be released later this year.
VR Chat Takes You Anywhere
Strapping on a VR headset and headphones is designed to isolate a user for full immersion, but that doesn’t mean you have to be lonely. During the keynote, Zuckerberg showed off a number of impressive features for VR chat in Oculus Rift—all connected to Facebook, of course. Zuckerberg demonstrated a three-person chat complete with real-time avatars, locations like under the sea or the surface of Mars and how everything ties together. For example, all three chat participants were able to use the Touch controller to play games or even draw interactive objects on the fly. Zuckerberg was able to take a call from Facebook messenger and even snap a “modern family selfie” within the platform, which he promptly posted to Facebook. The new VR chat system will support up to eight people at a time.
Listening in VR
Oculus’ newly announced earphones will have drivers optimized for VR. The company claims they’ll sound as good as $900 earphones and will available later this year for $49. To help fuel competition, the CAD and audio guidelines for the headset connector will be made available for anyone to make audio accessories for the Rift.
Building And Supporting The VR Ecosystem
Speaking of competition, VR will not be able to survive without a self-sustaining ecosystem. In its recent predictions about the future VR market, SuperData said: “Critical during this initial adoption phase will be the ability to establish a rich ecosystem of content providers that in turn will bear the fruit of VR and deliver on its promise.”
Oculus wants the world to be aware of its financial commitment to the VR ecosystem, committing $10 million to diversity programs and $250 million to VR game development.
To assist budding developers, Oculus will cover royalty fees for all Unreal Engine titles shipping on the Oculus Store, up to the first $5 million of gross revenue per game.
Gnomes & Goblins is a virtual reality original production that infuses an explorative experience with room-scale technology to immerse users in an enchanted fantasy world shaped from the imagination of Jon Favreau, the actor and filmmaker of Iron Man, The Jungle Book and Swingers fame.
Jon Favreau
In the native experience created by VR content studio Wevr—which is neither a game nor film—users will meet and develop a personal relationship with an enigmatic character of Favreau’s interactive fantasy and begin discovering its many realms and denizens in a magical world.
“This project was one where I felt like there had to be a lot of room for exploration,” said Favreau. “It wasn’t one where I wanted to know where we were going when we started. And so I wanted to work with a smaller company that had more of a lab feel rather than feeling like I was creating content for an established goal. You’re only as good as the people you are collaborating with and the whole team, although small, is a group of people that share a singular vision and a commitment to breaking new ground and trying to discover things. The appeal is to have somebody who is not a gamer and never had a VR experience, be able to enjoy without feeling that they need to have a certain skill set, but we also don’t want it to be passive cinematic experience where people just sit and enjoy it like a ride. It needs to be something where you engage in the way that you would in life. It should feel like you’re developing a relationship with these characters.”
Favreau said that presence was the most interesting phenomenon when he experienced VR for the first time. He called it “lucid dreaming” because people know what they’ll be seeing is artificial, yet, their brain fools them into believing it’s real. Favreau said he referred to the Turing Test to see if an entirely artificial environment can make people feel a sense of human connection. Gnomes & Goblins effectively presents a new entertainment paradigm.
Although it was the 49-year-old Favreau’s first foray into VR, he was not the guy behind the guy as he once was back in the day in Swingers. But he did work with a team of VR pros for the project, co-produced and co-published by Wevr, who earlier this year procured $25 million to become the YouTube of VR.
Neville Spiteri, co-founder and CEO of Wevr, who previous to that served as producer and senior development director at Electronic Arts, joined [a]listdaily to further detail how Favreau and company brought Gnomes & Goblins to life.
Why was the collaboration with Jon Favreau a good fit for the Wevr company profile? How did the project start?
Wevr is a VR studio creating high-quality experiences that are native to the VR medium. We’re exploring and pioneering interactive storytelling in VR. It was clear from the beginning that Jon’s storytelling sensibilities and curiosity to explore the VR medium couldn’t be a better fit for Wevr. Wevr animation director Andy Jones was working on the film The Jungle Book with Jon, and he brought him to Wevr’s office to check out our newest VR piece, theBlu: Whale Encounter. Jon was quite taken by theBlu and how it offered that sense of immersion and scale when coming face to face with the whale, and began thinking of how he could create characters and worlds and tell stories in VR. We started talking about his visions and quickly rolled into developing ideas. I brought on Jake Rowell, director of theBlu, as creative director for the project, and working with Jon and Jake and Andy Jones and the team . . . and Gnomes & Goblins came to life.
How do you explain what the immersive experience really is like?
Gnomes & Goblins is neither a film nor a game—it’s an interactive VR experience, and the outcome hinges on how the user interacts with the characters and environment. The user isn’t simply a passive onlooker but rather an active participant that plays a role in how the experience progresses. Jon describes it as ‘lucid dreaming.’ Players are able to actually relate to the goblin character and see his emotions through his facial expressions and body language. The story is about you and the goblin. In this sense you’re an actor in the experience, and are central to the plot. Following Jon’s vision, we took the elements of agency from game design and married them with the narrative best-practices from filmmaking, and I think, together we’re onto something quite special with Gnomes & Goblins. It’s clear from the user feedback, that people are enjoying themselves and feeling the emotional connection.
Previews for Gnomes & Goblins are available on Steam and Viveport, and then, on Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR later in the year. How are you currently connecting with consumers? And what is their reaction after experiencing it?
We’re getting great consumer feedback. The positive reviews have been fantastic. From YouTube gaming influencers to users commenting on reddit and the reviews on Steam, it’s clear that the public is excited about Gnomes & Goblins. We constantly show the product and carefully watch people’s emotional reactions moment to moment. Our goal was to release a preview as a first ‘tasting spoon’ to engage the community early on in our development, to listen, get feedback, learn from it, and shape the experience based on that.
Why did you specifically go for room-scale VR?
Room-scale allows you to move around a space and interact with your surroundings and use your hands to pick up and touch items in the VR world, which leads to a stronger sense of immersion and presence. It was clear to Jon from the get-go that in order to give you that sense of immersion and connection with the characters and the world you need to be able to move around and explore, and literally approach the characters and see how they respond. Jake designed a space in which you’re invited to explore and interact in order to achieve the sense of immersion and presence that makes this experience feel like you’re really transported to a fantasy world. You can really deliver that feeling with room-scale.
How big is your vision for Gnomes & Goblins? What do you want for it to become?
Jon has a big wonderful vision for the full world of Gnomes & Goblins. We’re now gathering feedback and engaging the community. We have the underpinnings in place to introduce more characters, expand the goblin world and the gnome world, add more plot lines and activities for the user to engage in. It will evolve more like a game with expanded versions, and the goal is for this to become a persistent universe that grows over time. Wevr has partnered with RealityOne to coproduce the full version of the experience. Jon and the whole team is excited to be building out what’s next.
How important is it to have a Hollywood filmmaker’s mind like Jon involved for VR projects to have critical acclaim? What are some things he saw from a storytelling standpoint that other creators normally don’t?
It’s very important. In this case, Jon’s incredible talent and curiosity pushes the project and the medium forward. What’s really interesting about collaborating with Jon is that despite his established expertise as a moviemaker, he quickly saw what’s different about VR as a real-time interactive medium and was willing to experiment and take a fresh approach and mind-set to shape ‘how the story is told’ in VR.
What is the most difficult part about being a VR startup? How are you measuring success of previous projects?
One of the biggest challenges of being a VR startup is that even though VR is ‘hot’ and will undoubtedly grow into a massive market, it’s still in the early days. So you have to pick and choose carefully where you invest energy in terms of time and money. At Wevr we’re deeply passionate about the medium and are fanatical about crafting experiences that people absolutely love. We’re measuring our success by the caliber of work we put out, and by how the rapidly growing VR community responds.
How would you describe the current consumer appetite for VR content? What kind of an experience works best for the platform?
Consumers are hungry for VR content—a wide variety of content categories. I would say easily that more people want to consume VR content today than actually own a VR headset. There’s passive 360-degree video, cinematic experiences like theBlu, and fully interactive games—across many genres like music, drama, comedy, horror and sci-fi. We developed a meditation simulation with [author] Deepak Chopra where the user is intentionally invited to be still and calm which works really well in VR. We collaborated with [animator] Tyler Hurd who created “Old Friend,” an interactive music video in which you can’t help yourself from dancing, and that worked really well. The 10-episode drama narrative series Gone that we developed with Skybound and Samsung is a totally different format and that works great, too. Turns out VR is pretty powerful for all kinds of experiences. I personally find that experiences that provide some degree of agency while also incorporating story can really shine in VR. Gnomes & Goblins is an example of this.
Neville Spiteri, co-founder and CEO of Wevr
What is currently the biggest challenge for marketing VR?
You can’t explain VR to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Not really. The biggest challenge in marketing VR today is describing the medium to the uninitiated—people really need to try it for themselves to truly get it. As VR continues to get press, and developers and studios release innovative and entertaining pieces that become more widely available, more people will get to experience VR for themselves which is what it’s all about. Accessibility is key. This is why we’re developing the Wevr Transport network to showcase VR content and market it in-and-outside of a headset, and provide a unified distribution network for mobile devices, in-home PCs/consoles, and to venues and experience centers throughout cities around the world. We’re addressing the challenge by enabling people who don’t have a VR headset to experience VR.
What’s next for Wevr plan on continuing to expand capability in the space?
On the network side of the business we launched the Transport VR network to showcase premium quality VR content. Transport is in public beta on GearVR and Vive, and next up is Daydream and Oculus Rift. It’s really working. We’re now extending Wevr Transport to distribute content to venues in neighborhoods and cities around the world. It’s all about making great VR and taking it to the people. On the studio side of the business we had four titles accepted at Sundance this year and have 11 nominations at the upcoming Proto Awards. We want to continue to experiment, and learn, and push for high-quality experiences and collaborate with the greatest storytellers of our time to make killer VR content. In addition to creating more Wevr originals, we’re actively investing in the growing community of VR creatives.
In addition to revenue, Skillz also reports that adding eSports to an app results in longer time spend in-game. Skillz players spend an average of 58 minutes a day competing in tournaments, the company said, adding that this figure is nearly double the 33-minute casual mobile gaming industry average.
Strapping on a VR headset and headphones is designed to isolate a user for full immersion, but that 
