Netflix has had no trouble amassing a sizable audience over the years using original programming that includes shows like House of Cards (which debuts its latest season this week), Fuller House and Daredevil. Success hasn’t stopped the popular streaming service from experimenting with new ideas, one of which recently paid off with a 20 percent spike in video viewing.
Variety reported on Netflix’s obsession with testing, which involves the images users see on their website, advertising various original series and hit movies. It doesn’t rely on traditional Hollywood art, but instead opts for more eye-catching material.
“We have 30 seconds, 60 seconds or 90 seconds to capture your interest,” Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt told Variety. It’s best to catch the viewers’ attention with something that will draw them in, or risk losing them to another service.
It all began with a new interface that was introduced in 2013, opting out of the usual DVD box cover art in favor of livelier assets, including stills from the production. These can be seen not only in the menus (with titles), but also on the description screen, where they sit in the background as the viewer learns more about the program.
The company has increased its usage of these images, with around a half dozen utilized for each video. From there, they go through testing with users. Hunt noted that the simple move with these custom images has managed to push video viewing between 20 and 30 percent.
Personalization also goes a certain length with testing, using timing and context with programs to help make the experience more personal for consumers, instead of handing down recommendations that will be passed over. For example, just because someone really enjoys watching an action film like The Rock doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be interested in a comedy like The Ridiculous Six.
Hunt explained that it all comes down to drawing in someone with those images, and the binge factor goes a long way. “So much of Netflix is binging on a series,” he explained. “We don’t need magic for that.”
With games like Candy Crush Soda Saga and Clash of Clans cleaning up well into the millions, you’d think most players are willing to purchase premium in-game items. But for most games, revenue is supported by about 5 percent of its audience.
Whales: These are the biggest spenders in a game, with the top 10 percent of an app’s spenders driving 70 percent of its IAP revenue, and nearly 60 percent of total revenue overall. Whales are usually known for having an average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) of $335, across 7.4 IAP transactions each month.
Dolphins and Minnows: Dolphins are known as mid-level spenders, while Minnows are on a lower level. Between the two groups, they spend around $26 in ARPPU, with less than two IAP transactions per month. They also don’t last as long as those in the Whales group, with only 33 average days spent on an app compared to 40.
Non-Spending Offer Takers: Generally, 95 percent of an app’s users won’t spent a cent on the game, and companies try their best to get them to engage with rewarded advertising offers. On average, these players complete eight offers per month, with an average revenue per user (ARPU) of $1.47.
Passive Players: 91 percent of overall users usually never pay for in-app content or take part in any promotional offer for a free-to-play game. That can result from zero-to-5 percent engagement in terms of monetization, and Tapjoy noted that most apps only generate 0.1 percent of revenue from Passive Players. However, they’re still vital, mainly due to their contributions to a daily active user base, and the ability to invite others to play.
Risk-of-Churn Players: Any player could run into churning, depending on length of time spent with an app. The median length of time is measured at 7 hours and 27 minutes, indicating a lot of churn opportunity. Push notifications can go a long way in bringing them back, as those that don’t open an app following a day’s worth of play aren’t likely to return.
New Players: Obviously, New Players play a big part with an app, as inviting – and keeping – them with engaging gameplay is a huge plus. However, it’s noted that players usually won’t make their first in-app payment with an app for about 16.3 days, and offer takers will usually wait 3.7 days before completing an ad offer. Patience is key here, and not bombarding them to the point that they will want to forget about the experience entirely.
To get more insight on these certain player types, [a]listdaily talked with Paul Bowen, Tapjoy’s vice president of global monetization.
Are personas generally fixed, or can developers hope to one day turn Passive Players into spending ones? What about the other personas?
No, personas are definitely not fixed, and it’s the developer’s job to help transition players from one persona to another more desirable one. While there are certainly some players that will never spend within a given game no matter what the developer does, there are many other players that, when presented with the right offer at the right time, will decide to act on it. Similarly, Risk-of-Churn Players can be re-engaged with the right offer or content and turn into highly active and loyal players. And it’s important to remember that developers can greatly impact the amount of Non-Spending Offer Takers by integrating rewarded ad offers into timely and contextually relevant moments within their game.
The report mentions that about 5 percent of players for any given game pay for in-app content. Are high profile games like Clash of Clans, Game of War and Candy Crush Saga exceptions?
There are certainly some games that are the exceptions to the rule, and it is often the successful games when you hear about it because these games monetize so well, they have more money to spend on user acquisition and they become big hits. We don’t know the monetization rates specifically for those games, but we can be fairly certain that they wouldn’t advertise so prominently if they didn’t monetize so well.
Do the types of premium goods offered, or their price, impact the types of personas that play the game?
Certainly. The more compelling and valuable the goods, the more likely they are to sell, and therefore the more paying players a game will have. Similarly, lower price points will attract more paying players. ‘Vanity goods,’ which allow players to personalize their profiles, are often popular, but virtual goods that offer some type of utility in the game will typically convert more payers. It’s just important to remember not do overdo it – players should still be able to have a fair and enjoyable experience even if they never buy anything in the game.
How important are Passive Players to the health of a game, and how should they be treated?
Even though passive players only account for a very small percentage of game revenue, they are extremely important to the overall health of a game because they help drive engagement, they keep the traffic levels up, and they can invite their friends to join them. Developers should do what they can to try and convert these players into payers or offer takers, but if they should choose to remain passive then it’s the developer’s job to accept that and do everything possible to make sure they have the best gaming experience possible.
Besides Passive Players, what is the most prevalent type of persona in mobile gaming?
New Players are clearly prevalent because all players fall into this persona when they first start playing, and if a game is growing fast then there will be lots of new players at any given point. It’s the same thing with Risk-of-Churn Players: all players fall into this category at one point or another, so it’s important to know how to re-engage them and stretch out their player lifespan as much as possible.
Unlike annual releases like Assassin’s Creed, the Far Cry series has much more flexibility in what it covers. Players have been taken to far-off locations like lush jungle islands, a fictional country in the Himalayan mountains and even a retro ’80s sci-fi universe where they combat a blood dragon. The newest installment, Far Cry Primal, transports players to a prehistoric time, where they must survive against both warring tribes and wild beasts using only Stone Age weapons.
With roughly five months between the announcement and release of the game, Far Cry Primal saw a fast-paced marketing campaign that readied players to travel back far before recorded history.
The writing on the wall
Last October, Ubisoft teased the announcement of a new game by livestreaming a video of a torch-lit cave drawing. Starting with an up-close shot of what looked like the drawing of man holding a primitive weapon, the camera incrementally zoomed outward to reveal a whole tableau complete with saber-toothed cats and wooly mammoths.
Although the Far Cry Primal image was leaked hours before the event concluded, Ubisoft stayed tight-lipped and let speculation stir. When the game was finally revealed, players discovered that they would have a chance to visit the Stone Age.
In an official statement, Ubisoft creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot explained why the Stone Age was the perfect setting. “Far Cry usually puts you at the edge of the known world, in a beautiful, lawless and savage frontier. The Stone Age is, in a way, the very first frontier for humankind; it’s the time when humans put a stick in the ground and claimed land for their own, the time when we started climbing the food chain. That came with conflict, against other humans of course, but also against nature itself.”
Unleashing the Beast Master
In December, fans were given a first look at some of Far Cry Primal‘s gameplay, and found out that they would not only have a chance to go toe-to-toe fighting against giant cats and mammoths, but also a chance to tame and control them. Given enough skill, players could explore the land while riding a deadly saber-toothed cat before unleashing it on unsuspecting foes.
To stir up hype even further, playable demos were available at the PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco, giving attendees a chance to go wild.
Crushing it in slow motion
In the months leading up to the Feb. 23 (March 1 on PC) release of Far Cry Primal, Ubisoft released videos that revealed new details about the story, the enemies players will encounter and the primitive yet spectacularly effective weapons at their disposal. A number of YouTube personalities streamed early versions of the game to give viewers an in-depth look at living life in 10,000 B.C.E.
Among these is a video detailing how modern day objects would stand up against the crushing strength of a wooly mammoth, shown in slow motion. Spoiler: mammoth wins.
Gaming in the Stone Age
With less than one month before the game released, Ubisoft released a fantastic live-action trailer featuring a soldier that gradually moves from the future to the past across various battle scenarios before ending up in the Stone Age with nothing but a small bone to fight off a saber-toothed cat with.
This is also the time when marketing became a little more experimental. Going with a sort of Flintstones theme, a stone carving of a PlayStation 4 was commissioned. A video details how the console was cut from a single slab of stone, complete with a Far Cry Primal branded stone table, some stone controllers, flat screen TV and pizza slices and soda.
Not to be outdone, the official website promoted a video put together by Oz Modz, detailing how to build a custom Far Cry Primal-themed gaming PC to mark the March 1 PC release. It’s not carved from a slab of rock, but at least it works.
To further celebrate the game’s launch on the PC, the developers livestreamed the game on Twitch, the same as they did for the console release, giving fans everywhere a reason to give up on guns and pick up a nice, dependable spear.
When they’re not playing themselves, more gamers are watching video game content. And while Twitch will remain a big part of servicing that audience with live streams and archived content, a recent infographic from Newzoo indicates that YouTube makes up a tremendous part of that traffic.
Over 500 million gamers will be tuning in to YouTube for gaming videos this year, according to the study. A majority of these will come from the Asian Pacific market, rounding at nearly 200 million regular viewers.
Other pertinent statistics include:
Over 470 million gamers watch online gaming content on a regular basis. That accounts for 56 percent of all gamers across North and Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Audience size is expected to grow past the 500 million mark within 2016.
Online video is more than twice as effective at reaching big spenders than television is; 35 percent use YouTube to discover new games, whereas only 14 percent discover new titles via TV commercials.
The average viewer of gaming content on YouTube is a 28 year old male who has a high income.
YouTube is the largest platform for VOD game content and half of U.S. gamers watch it more than once a month. Twitch, the most popular live game streaming platform, has the highest reach in Latin and North America.
Despite competition from Twitch, the report notes that YouTube “still dominates around the globe” by at least a 2:1 margin. In the U.S., half of all gamers watch videos on a consistent basis on Google’s video channel, compared to 21 percent watching them on Twitch. These numbers show even greater difference overseas. In France, for example, 49 percent of gamers watch YouTube on a regular basis, while only 9 percent tune in to Twitch.
“Online video is the biggest thing to hit the games market since the launch of the iPhone in 2007,” Newzoo CEO Peter Warman said of the study. “Games are evolving toward cross-screen transmedia franchises right now. A direct consequence is the increased focus on communities of both gamers and viewers. This is creating enormous new growth and marketing opportunities for game companies and will accelerate the disruption of traditional media.”
That said, Twitch is certainly no slouch, as Newzoo also notes, via Games Industry that, “While it is correct that YouTube is watched by a much higher group of gamers than Twitch, the difference between the two platforms should be clearly stated (VOD vs. Live) to provide a fairer comparison.”
This follows Twitch’s recent report regarding record numbers for 2015, which shows that it’s a strong competitor to YouTube, even with these statistics.
Originally published by THQ in 2011, Homefront took players to the future where the United States was occupied by global superpower North Korea. Players had to gather forces to fight against the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and help liberate the nation.
The rights to Homefront were auctioned off and purchased by Crytek when THQ declared bankruptcy. Homefront: The Revolution was announced before it was sold again in 2014 to Koch Media, Deep Silver’s parent company. But like the freedom fighters depicted in the game, the developers continued to work on the game with strong resolve, despite its perceived setbacks.
Homefront: The Revolution made its big debut last August with a trailer called “Thank You,” featuring a boy giving a speech at a school thanking the occupiers for giving his country a new sense of purpose, supported with scenes of violence and revolutionary activity. A few days later, audiences were given an early look at the gameplay within the Red Zone, with more gameplay shown in the months that followed. Homefront: The Revolution will still have players fighting for freedom against an occupying foreign power on American soil, but this time with an all-new story, setting (Philadelphia) and features like an open-world and four-player co-op.
[a]listdaily caught up with Huw Beynon, global brand manager at Deep Silver, to talk about how Homefront: The Revolution will rise up and create a whole new perception for the franchise.
What would you say sets Homefront: The Revolution apart from other shooters?
Homefront: The Revolution has a unique premise in gaming that continues to drive huge interest in the intellectual property. It delivers the emotional experience of a war on your own soil. The player is cast not as a super soldier, secret agent or trained professional, but as a freedom fighter with a powerful cause: to liberate an oppressed population. We deliver this premise through the gameplay experience of guerrilla warfare. This is not a linear shooter where your overpowered hero steadily grinds his way past waves of enemies. You have to master the art of guerrilla warfare – hit and run, infiltration and sabotage – all while using the environment and your improvised weaponry against a technologically and numerically superior force.
Dambuster Studios has created an amazing gameplay sandbox that differs radically from Zone to Zone. In the fall, we showed our Red Zone experience, and we saw a few media outlets pin it as an ‘urban Far Cry.’ After unveiling our “resistance mode” co-op experience, we heard ‘Left 4 Dead meets Freedom Fighters.’ The Yellow and Green Zones have yet to be revealed, so there’s a lot more to this game than first meets the eye.
Living in a country occupied by a foreign nation may be a sensitive topic for some, even though Homefront is science fiction. How has promotion for the game worked with that?
Homefront: The Revolution deals with serious themes, not just from history books, but events that are happening around the world today. We see oppression, occupation and civil war happening to ‘other people’ on the news. Homefront asks the question, ‘What if this happened on our own doorstep?’ That ‘what if’ premise of Homefront is one of the reasons why the I.P. is so compelling. A core pillar of the brand is, ‘The familiar has become alien.’ Homefront works when you see images of Americana twisted and subverted – whether it’s the burnt out yellow school bus being used as a roadblock, to the brick row houses of Philadelphia hung with KPA propaganda. I think our audience is smart enough to realize that this is a work of fiction, but that the themes that Homefront explores are mature, timely and relevant. So long as we don’t try to exploit our audience, I am confident we can engage and inspire them with our premise.
Were there other challenges in promoting the game?
Homefront: The Revolution is a complete reboot of an I.P. that had a somewhat checkered past. A major challenge has been overcoming some of the preconceptions that came with that. We saw real value in the brand because the premise is so unique and powerful, but we’ve had to constantly prove that our product is ahead from the previous iteration. The original Homefront was great at establishing the fiction, but as a gaming experience, it didn’t match the full potential. Homefront: The Revolution is a much more ambitious product, with close to 10 times the content in single player; we need to keep proving that to our core audience who deserve to know that their $60 will be well spent.
Another challenge to overcome is the back story. The first Homefront depicted an alternate future where the North Korea of today grew to become a superpower capable of invading the U.S. within 15 years. Understandably, this fantasy did not convince everyone! It’s been well documented that the original antagonist was supposed to be China and THQ got cold feet, making the switch at the eleventh hour, so there’s little credibility in the notion that the North Korea we know today, despite their sabre-rattling, could ever invade America.
When Deep Silver acquired the I.P., we saw the opportunity to rip up this back story and come up with something new. We’ve created an entire alternative history and future, based on a divergent point in the 1950s that turns the world order on its head. In Homefront: The Revolution, the U.S. has been occupied by North Korea – but the story of how this could happen is, I think, one of the most interesting things about the reboot that we’ll be showing in the coming weeks and months. Suffice to say, while the old fiction was a blunt instrument, we think the new back story is smart, extremely topical and ripe for a lot of interesting interpretation.
Homefront: The Revolution seems to have had a tumultuous development. Were you nervous that the history might be an impediment?
Homefront: The Revolution’s development is a lot more stable than most reports suggest. Underneath the I.P. auctions, acquisitions and name changes, this is the same team working from the same office space, mostly at the same desks, for the past five years ever since THQ first signed the project. The sale of the I.P. to Crytek in 2013 gave the studio the opportunity to pause, take stock and re-scope the game from solid ground. However ‘tumultuous’ it may have been perceived, the development path has resulted in a game that we cannot wait to unleash.
What did you learn from the recent closed beta?
This was a proper closed beta with real development goals, and as such, the beta was a massive success. We tested our matchmaking tools, stressed the servers and obtained hundreds of gigabytes of telemetry that will improve the final product and hopefully a smooth day-one experience for the consumer. We held the beta early for a reason, so we could get the data and give ourselves time to take action and improve the final product.
We also learned that today’s consumer expects ‘beta’ software to closely resemble the final product quality; a lot of recent alphas/betas have only reinforced that idea. And you can’t argue against that. The consumer is right. We have to prove to them that the game they spend $60 on will be of the highest quality. I’m confident we will do that long before the May 17 release.
With constant fear of identity theft, sharing information is still a sizable concern with a plethora of consumers. That may explain why some are a little unsure about sharing it with marketers.
A recent study conducted by Syniverse (per Fortune) indicates that 75 percent of consumers polled stated that they don’t trust brands, even those that are well-known, with their information. What’s more, 55 percent have stated that their trust has been betrayed in one form or another.
Concern isn’t limited to the United States, as the poll was conducted across international markets that include Brazil, Britain and South Korea.
“The assumption is that end users will willingly share personal data in return for personalized services,” the report indicates. “But it looks like this assumption is wrong.”
That may explain the recent rise in ad-blocking services, both across desktop and mobile devices, as consumers look to keep their information secure.
The survey also points out that half of those polled have lost faith in mobile telecommunication operators to keep their data safe and use it responsibly, again bringing up potential security issues.
Only 14 percent of consumers stated they wanted to share information like location and interactions, while 30 percent said they weren’t willing to share any personal information whatsoever.
“Retailers, hoteliers, financial institutions and mobile operators need to rethink their approach to harvesting, managing and using private data,” the report concluded.
After scoring the iconic athletes Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor for the cover, EA Sports UFC 2 is out to continue winning players over with five new modes and an even greater sense of realism.
Chief among the new content is a Live Events mode, which ties in with real-world UFC fights. Then there’s Knockout mode, which does away with submissions in favor of straight kickboxing until an opponent falls unconscious — perfect for UFC 2‘s newest special character, Mike Tyson. The famous boxer will be reimagined as an MMA fighter, and appears as two versions: Iron Mike Tyson, at the start of his career, and the more experienced Legendary Mike Tyson.
[a]listdaily talked to Brian Hayes, creative director for UFC 2, about connecting the game to real-world events and what it takes to deliver a knockout game experience.
Tell us about Live Events …
Live Events is a completely new feature, born out of looking at the telemetry from UFC 1, and we saw that more players were playing on weekends when there was a fight. And on those weekends, we saw more usage of the fighters fighting on that card. So, we wanted to make something that would help people engage with real-world events.
We open up a live event when a UFC event comes up, and there are two things you can do. First, you can play it as a fantasy pick ’em game. So, I can make a pick and say, ‘I think Stephen Thompson is going to knock out Johny Hendricks in the first round.’ If Thompson ends up knocking him out in the third round, I get points for predicting the win, but only a certain amount, because I didn’t get the round right. Those points can be used to buy packs for UFC Ultimate Team.
The other thing I can do is make the prediction, then play that round against the (computer). Regardless of what happens in the real-world fight, I get bonus points if I make my prediction happen in the game.
Live mode actually lets you play with the fighters that are in the upcoming event, and when it’s over, you get rewards and can check out leaderboards to see how you stack up against online friends. So, it’s a pretty cool tie-in with what’s happening with the UFC.
Do you have any kind of promotional partnership with the UFC for Live Events?
It’s to be determined, but there’s certainly opportunity. We open up a Live Event a week or two before the actual event happens, so players will have plenty of time to make their picks and predictions. At a very base level, we could give them the data regarding what fans are predicting in a fight that we hope they’d work that into the broadcast. They could talk about the most popular UFC 2 predictions before the fight happens. We could also give them in-game footage of that result as a pre-visual of the fight.
But we are definitely looking at events as they relate to Ultimate Team mode, where the announcer might say, ‘Check out UFC 2 Ultimate Team for the latest move of the night,’ at the end of an event. In a matter of hours, there will be new content and special moves, based on what happened during the event, that will be available for a limited time.
Can you go into more detail about the Ultimate Team mode?
It’s different from Madden, FIFA or NHL Ultimate Team, because this isn’t a team sport. But it lets you create up to five fighters that can become a team in the tradition of MMA teams that train together. Basically, you create a fighter, fight with that fighter, and win or lose, you earn in-game coins for purchasing fight packs.
Inside of these fight packs are new moves to equip your fighter with fighter perks, attribute boosts (consumable items to boost fighter ratings), training and fitness items. There’s a huge catalogue of in-game moves to customize fighters with, along with unique moves based on what happened at a recent UFC event.
As each one of your fighters gets better, your team levels goes up, so you can put more high level moves on your fighter. The other thing is, you don’t have to play online. You can play single-player Ultimate Team, but you’ll be playing CPU-controlled avatars of other users. If you have a full team of five fighters, they’ll earn coins for you if they’re used to fight other people in single player.
Can UFC 2 recreate the 13-second McGregor vs. Aldo fight?
I’ve knocked out people pretty quickly, and finished fights in as few as 22 seconds, but that fight was a one-punch knockout. That’s virtually impossible in the game. The chances of a straight one-punch knockout are about the same as they are in the real UFC, and the only person I’ve seen do it is Conor McGregor.
Maybe one or two other guys have done it, but if you look at how many fights there have been in UFC history, and how many happened in under 15 seconds … you end up with very small odds.
Even with Mike Tyson in the match?
He can finish guys quickly, if he lands punches. Yes, he is devastatingly powerful in this game. He can’t do any takedowns, doesn’t have any submissions and can’t do any kicks, but his punches are the most devastating in the game.
What inspired you to include Mike Tyson in the game?
It’s very similar to the Bruce Lee integration last year. We wanted to include somebody a little bit ‘out there,’ but not too far out there. We try to stay in the realm of famed combat sport athletes. Even though Bruce Lee didn’t fight, there’s nobody else in history who has had a greater impact on martial arts as a discipline and sport.
Mike Tyson is still one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. He was in his heyday right around the time the UFC was starting. So, there was the question of what would have happened if Mike Tyson was at UFC 1 instead of Art Jimmerson — the boxer who came in wearing one glove and got tapped out by Royce Gracie. Would it have gone differently?
Back in the day, everyone was asking the question: ‘Do you think you can take a punch from Mike Tyson?’ So, we decided to bring this to life a little bit. It’s fun to put Mike Tyson in that space, and play a career mode that builds him up not as a boxer, but as a devastating mixed martial artist.
Tyson is also good friends with [UFC president] Dana White and is a huge fan of the UFC. So we thought if we approached him, he’d probably dig it. Sure enough, he did.
Who’s more likely to win the most — Iron Mike Tyson or Legendary Mike Tyson?
Definitely Iron Mike Tyson, because he’s younger, faster and slightly more powerful. Legendary Mike Tyson is more experienced, but in a sport like UFC — where things can be ended in a single punch — Iron Mike Tyson does a little better. But they’re both plenty dangerous.
The Mobile World Congress, which took place in Barcelona, celebrated everything mobile across several days of panels, demonstrations and other activities. From the event, certain trends emerged that marketers will want to take note of. Here’s a quick rundown.
Ad-blocking and ad selling continue to clash
We discussed the growing concern over mobile ad blocking this week, and it continued to be a hot topic during a panel at MWC. The panelists went back and forth about the value (or consequence) that comes from utilizing ad-blocking on mobile.
Roi Carthy, chief marketing officer for Shine – a company that blocks ads for its 14 million subscribers – explained that it’s the “single biggest threat to online advertising.”
“It may be blunt, but we believe our strategy is about helping expedite a solution,” he explained.
Some are concerned by these solutions, like fellow panelist Benjamin Faes, Google’s managing director of media and platform, who felt these solutions were punishing publishers.
Allie Kline, CMO for AOL, explained that companies should be less concerned about ads that are being stopped and instead focus more on consumer-friendly ads that they wouldn’t want to block.
That’s not an easy solution, according to Pete Blackshaw, vice president of digital and social media for Nestlé. “How do we figure out the right win-win model?” he asked. “We can’t ignore publishers, but we have to be sensitive to consumers. So how do we seize the moment?”
Virtual reality finds a big presence
Even with bigger units like the Oculus and PlayStation VR set to arrive this year, more companies are pushing for a virtual reality experience on mobile.
LG introduced a virtual reality headset called the 360 VR that is already getting buzz, while South Korea’s SK Telecom is also receiving a lot of attention.
This, on top of Google’s recently proposed headset and Samsung’s Gear VR (which is being given away with Galaxy S7 pre-orders), indicates that consumers are more than willing to give mobile virtual reality a shot – especially if it comes at a fraction of the price of the more deluxe headsets, like HTC Vive’s $799 model.
The Internet of Things continues to grow
More Internet-enabled appliances were introduced at the MWC, and while some items are questionable (do we really need a Fitbit for dogs?), it all ties in to a much bigger picture.
Research firm Gartner noted that the market for these devices will reach $101 billion this year, a 30 percent increase over the $78 billion spent last year. This includes smart refrigerators and other gadgets that will utilize an Internet connection.
Whether these devices really take off has yet to be seen, but curiosity is paying off at the event, with thousands of attendees checking out these savvy gadgets.
5G is taking the mobile market to the next level
4G is a pretty solid connection speed for mobile carriers these days, but that isn’t stopping research from going into the next level, as several telecom operators began offering demonstrations of 5G support.
However, it’s still a ways off from market, as the first 5G ultra-fast mobile networks aren’t set to begin testing until 2018.
Still, marketers may want to start getting ready to hype this feature, as it’ll be the next big thing when it comes to convenience with smartphones, especially for those that want to watch streaming TV or quickly complete downloads of favorite games or other apps. Lower latency and reaction times are expected to be key features as well.
Expect more details as testing gets closer, by about this time next year. In the meantime, a Chinese telecommunications company called Huawei is already playing around with the idea of 4.5G, a faster speed it intends to test out sometime this year. It probably won’t be as highly anticipated as 5G, but to some consumers, faster is faster.
Imagine the movie Gravity as a video game experience, and you’ll have some idea of what ADR1FT is all about. The debut game, developed by Three One Zero, has already made quite an impression, especially since it will also have virtual reality support to create a deep, beautiful and unforgettable experience. ADR1FT launches on March 28 for PC as a non-VR game, with Oculus Rift support and console releases at a later date.
The developer has also partnered with iam8bit to create a special collector’s edition, a 756-piece jigsaw puzzle, a packet of dehydrated astronaut ice cream and an embroidered space station patch that fits into the game’s fiction.
[a]listdaily talked to Adam Orth, creative director at Three One Zero, to find out what goes into promoting a weightless “lost in space” experience.
How would you describe ADR1FT to someone who has never heard of it?
ADR1FT is a narrative-driven FPX (first-person experience) about an astronaut who wakes up floating amongst the debris of a destroyed space station with no memory and a damaged EVA suit slowly leaking oxygen. Your goals in ADR1FT are to simply stay alive and get home safely. Along the way, you discover the stories of the crew members that didn’t survive the catastrophe and eventually learn about yourself and what caused the destruction.
How have you been getting the word out about ADR1FT?
We’ve been fortunate that the concept and premise is immediately compelling and that we can back it up with amazing software. Showing the VR version of ADR1FT to press and at trade shows has really gotten the word out, far past the normal game press. VR is definitely something people are interested in and we are able to give them an incredible experience.
Has promoting ADR1FT both as a regular game and VR experience been challenging?
The real challenge we’ve had is that our VR experience is in such high-demand, most people don’t know that the game will be available non-VR as well. We’ve been surprised how loud the VR excitement has been. It has almost completely drowned out the other way you can play ADR1FT.
In what ways does using an Oculus Rift to play enhance the experience?
Selling the fantasy of being an astronaut in peril is hard. VR has allowed us to tap into the primal emotions of people within a universal subject. How you really feel about space comes through when you are playing ADR1FT. It’s magical that hardware can do that.
Has virtual reality impacted the way ADR1FT was designed and promoted?
Developing ADR1FT for VR and non-VR was challenging in the way that we always had to consider things that were basically unknown and untested. We have a very smart team and we made bets based on our experience. Most paid off, some didn’t. That’s what’s kind of exciting about VR. Exploring the unknown and finding new things by searching in the darkness.
How did you and iam8bit partner to come up with the collector’s edition package?
I’ve been a huge fan of iam8bit for years and they approached us. I couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. They make really unique presentations of known products and turn them into something entirely new without compromising the soul and integrity of the original product.
Adrian Grenier will forever be known in Hollywood circles as the laid-back alpha bro Vincent Chase on the hit show Entourage, but the 39-year-old actor is familiar with one particular script that circles around in Tinsletown: You’re endlessly reinventing and reintroducing yourself.
“I’m always thinking of new ways to connect to people, and bringing them into the conversation to psyche their imagination for a better world, but also to recognize the limitations of our current world,” the actor told [a]listdaily in an interview.
Grenier says his days of delivering conspicuous consumption are in the past, and he’s solely focused on a conscious-consumption agenda and educating others for the future. He introduced a different way with a powerful, social-conscious endeavor that better understands the plight of whales, and addresses issues in oceans through the feature film 52: The Search for the Loneliest Whale. It documents the search for “the loneliest whale,” a creature who’s lived most of his life in isolation because its calls were too high to be heard.
The The Lonely Whale Foundation – which focuses on ocean-health awareness through dialogue and education – released the film. The initial Kickstarter even captivated the attention of longtime environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, who donated $50,000 to the cause. The passion project eventually yielded Grenier’s foray into a new form of filmmaking: virtual reality.
Dell made Grenier the company’s first Social Good Advocate because of his involvement and credibility in sustainable matters at SXSW last year. The partnership produced the underwater virtual reality experience Cry Out: The Lonely Whale Experience, a three-minute, 360-degree film that transports viewers into the sea to witness underwater life and how pollution has disrupted it.
“VR is one of the cutting-edge storytelling technologies that has people’s attention right now and has a lot of potential for expansive storytelling that is new, fresh and exciting,” Grenier says. “I’m thinking about it from a filmmaker’s perspective. How can I use this to tell a story with the potential that it offers?”
Cry Out debuted at Art Basel Miami, and then the United Nations Paris Climate Conference last December. The underwater VR expedition was created by 3D Live with Dell Precision, Alienware, AMD and HTC technology. Nathan Huber, CEO of the VR production company 3D Live, says Grenier wanted to push boundaries from unique filmmaking perspectives.
“The future of entertainment is creating immersive experiences, and Adrian is excited to do that while bringing awareness to a just cause, and we are too,” Huber says. “He’s passionate, and has a lot of drive. He’s at a place in his life that he wants to make a change, and the way people think. He has the right energy, drive, voice and platform. It’s a perfect marriage.”
Grenier says VR technology still has a long way to go, but it’s enough for content creators and Hollywood types to begin experimenting with. Taking a shot at making VR films now will have the industry “ready” whenever the tech is.
“I’m really looking forward to arena-style VR experiences where we can all have communal, shared experiences, or somehow, what we’re seeing includes the audience,” Grenier says. “We take for granted how a story is told, and how it unfolds from the viewer’s experience. What your focus and takeaways are. These are all a part of classic filmmaking. Now that we have an audience of one that has the ability to look away from what you’re trying to show them, it’s a new obstacle. In trying to overcome that, we’re finding new solutions to innovate storytelling altogether.”
Grenier’s post-Entourage life now draws some parallels to the one he sometimes played in the show – a powerful symbol for how humankind can be better by diving deep into the ocean and addressing its issues.
What would you say sets Homefront: The Revolution apart from other shooters?
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