Ross Borden Talks ‘Orcs Must Die Unchained!’ Potential

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Although eSports might be dominated by a few big names right now, particularly shooters like the Call of Duty series, as indicated by Activision’s push for the Call of Duty Championship — or competitive MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) like League of Legends, DOTA 2 and the recently released Heroes of the Storm. But there’s always room for more, which is where “oddball” like Orcs Must Die Unchained! (OMDU) fits in.

Produced by Robot Entertainment, Orcs Must Die Unchained! is hitting the eSports scene with its particular brand of cartoon comedy that combines competitive team-based MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) gameplay with trap-setting tower-defense. Players must destroy the enemy’s fortress, all while keeping their own protected using either direct combat or by setting traps, which include spiked walls, lava pits, and a variety of other spectacular and blood-splattering tools.

ross borden headshot

[a]listdaily caught up with Ross Borden, the newly appointed chief publishing officer for Robot Entertainment. “Robot is already an amazing studio with talented developers and a track record of critical successes like Orcs Must Die and Hero Academy,” said Ross, discussing his role in the company. “My focus is on combining best in-class service, community and analytics in order to truly understand and delight our customers.”

The game is currently in beta on PC, and will eventually release for PlayStation 4, but doesn’t have a specific release date for either yet. Borden stated that progress on it is moving along swimmingly. “The team has been busy making huge progress over the recent months. I can’t wait for gamers to play it, including millions that bought and loved the previous games.”

The previous game, Orcs Must Die! 2, focused heavily on two-player cooperation, which gained the series its following. While OMDU introduces a team-based competitive multiplayer, making it perfect for competitive eSports, it’s entering into a very crowded area. However, Borden remains confident, mainly due to the game’s team vs. team nature. “It has a robust competitive mode, which we think complements our cooperative (PvE) mode really well,” he explained. “eSports will become more significant post-launch.”

As for the nature of eSports itself, Borden believes it will continue to be on the rise. “eSports is huge and it will only continue to grow,” he explained. “Entire ecosystems are forming around it, including fantasy sports and betting. Prizes and recognition will continue to motivate gamers to get involved. So it’s a major factor to consider for anyone making competitive games.”

Marketing will also play a big part in the game, as the cartoonish level of violence and multiplayer antics may appeal to both professional and casual players. “This game will be really fun to market,” Borden explained. “I am confident that we will effectively cut through the competitive noise by leveraging OMD’s signature humor together with its reputation for being one of the best action tower defense franchises in the world.”

“I remember my initial reaction four years ago when I heard about the new game called Orcs Must Die!. First I laughed — I guess you kill Orcs — and then I bought it and loved it. I hope that gamers react that way to our marketing!”

How Nvidia Shield Rules the Living Room From 10,000 Feet in the Air

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The sky is the limit when it comes to promoting the Nvidia Shield Android TV gaming and entertainment set-top box. There’s no better way to demonstrate this than with one of its latest ads, which features skydiver Jeff Provenzano. He also happens to be strapped into a makeshift living room before being dropped from a cargo plane 10,000 feet in the air, with a cat nearby.

As part of the Rule the Living Room campaign, Provenzano got to relax and get in some Ultra Street Fighter IV before pulling the ripcord on his parachute while the living room fell to the earth. Was this a real stunt or was it faked Given all the graphics technology that’s at Nvidia’s disposal, it could be either or both. Speculating is half the fun.

Nvidia David Wright

[a]listdaily spoke to David Wright, Executive Creative Director at Nvidia, to see what went into the making of a living room free-fall.

The general rule is to be bold, so when we asked how Nvidia came up with the idea of the living room free-fall video, he replied “Living rooms are starting to grow out of control. Cable boxes, DVRs, game consoles, Blu-ray players and more are cluttering home entertainment systems. SHIELD cuts through the chaos. What better way to depict this, than to show someone in total control of the most chaotic, dangerous living room known to man This is why we decided to film someone using SHIELD while free-falling from 10,000 feet.”

Being cool and in control, even when your living space is out of control, is all part of the Rule the Living Room campaign. “Rule the Living Room is about taking back control of your entertainment options,” Wright explains. “Instead of needing multiple sources to enjoy the media you want, SHIELD provides a single option for the best movies, music, TV shows, apps and games — all at up to 4K resolutions.”

Given how Nvidia is known for advanced graphics technology, so it’s hard to tell whether the video, or parts of it, were faked. When asked whether fans appreciated the speculative nature of the video, Wright stated, “Fan reaction has been very positive. We’ve seen a lot of engagement with the video. Many fans can’t believe that it’d be real. With our GPU capabilities, we can’t find fault in their disbelief.”

But if we were to assume that the video were real, then how many round of Ultra Street Fighter IV did Provenzano play while falling in mid-air “It takes approximately one minute to free-fall 10,000 feet.” Wright states. “Depending on how good his opponent was, he may have enough time to finish a complete match.”

Fans are likely to keep guessing about the nature of video for quite some time, but whatever conclusion they reach, Nvidia reminds us that, “No cats were harmed in the making of this film.” The same cannot be said about the living room setup after it hit the earth.

Intel Celebrates 10 Years Of ESports

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Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) celebrates its tenth season with its North American leg at SAP Center in San Jose Nov. 21-22. The event, which is run by ESL and sponsored by Intel, is the longest-running global eSports tournaments. League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro gamers will be competing for a cash prize pool of $175,000 over the weekend.

George Woo, global sponsorships manager at IntelCorporation, has been with the program since its inception. He said Intel initially got involved in eSports to create brand awareness and be relevant to the gaming communities.

Ten-plus years ago the Intel brand awareness was very low with gamers, Woo said. With Intel s continuous involvement with eSports and the entire PC gaming ecosystem, we are now one of the strongest brands with gamers.

Michal Blicharz, managing director of pro gaming at ESL, said the partnership between ESL and Intel has been like a good marriage.

There were ups and downs and we had to make lots of changes and adjustments along the way due to the ever-changing landscape of eSports, but ultimately it comes down to the insane amounts of trust we’ve built up for each other, Blicharz said. Intel has not been afraid to take the plunge with us a couple of times first when few other companies really believed in eSports, and more recently with the movement towards stadium events. We’ve had crazy ideas and Intel has supported us — sometimes blindly. And we’ve managed to eclipse my personal dreams for where eSports would be, together.

Woo has seen tremendous growth with IEM with regards to scale and reach. He said more IEM event stops in the future will be hosted in sports arenas, instead of co-locating in a trade show or event, due to the growth and popularity of eSports.

Intel has been the longest-serving supporter of eSports in the world when it comes to major corporations, Blicharz said. In its early days, the industry was build on Intel money, even before Intel partnered up with ESL for the Intel Extreme Masters in 2006. Millennials can no longer be reached via traditional marketing. They close the door on the corporate world because all of their entertainment is consumed on demand, and whenever they browse the web they’re likely running ad block. The best way to reach them is to support their hobby in a way that’s meaningful and come in invited through the front door into their lives. That’s what Intel has done.

The IEM trophy has expanded over the past decade, just as eSports has evolved. The cup has champions names from WarCraft III, Counter-Strike 1.6, QuakeLive, World of Warcraft and League of Legends, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is being added this year.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich attended the San Jose IEM event last year, and this year he s participating in a celebrity League of Legends competition along with Mark Cuban and others to raise money for Cyber Smile.

One of the reasons we decided to go to San Jose, next to the fact that there are so many gamers in the Bay Area, is because we wanted to turn as many Intel employees into eSports fans, Blicharz said. The Intel CEO s involvement in the charity match this year shows how much Intel has opened itself up to eSports.

Intel has benefited from the past decade of eSports tournaments. Woo said being involved in eSports allows Intel interact with the PC gaming communities.

IEM is the global marketing platform that we use to connect with PC gamers to introduce them to our latest gaming experiences and product offerings, Woo said. IEM being the longest running global independent gaming platform provides Intel a strong and relevant PC gaming platform for the Intel Geo s to leverage and make an impact in their markets.

Blicharz said the largest IEM event so far was the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship last season, which had over 100,000 attendees and over 10 million viewers on Twitch. At the peak, around 1 million concurrent viewers were watching the event on Twitch and on Asian streaming platforms.

Our smaller events don’t reach that level of viewership yet, but as we are adding more events in arenas, that viewership is getting higher as well, Blicharz said.

The explosion of livestreaming platforms like Twitch has allowed ESL and Intel to tap into a global audience simultaneously with big eSports events.

Livestreaming is important, and will play a more significant role in Intel s marketing plans in reaching the gaming audience worldwide, Woo said.

ESL is also using IEM to experiment with virtual reality for the first time, partnering with Jaunt VR to capture highlights of the event to be viewed through 360-degree video in the near future.

 

Square Enix On The ‘Win an Island’ Giveaway for ‘Just Cause 3’

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Just Cause players are encouraged to cause as much mayhem and destruction as possible, while creatively using a variety of tools, weapons and vehicles. Just Cause 3 intends to dial up the insanity a couple notches when it releases on December 1st, with a massive open world set on an idyllic Mediterranean Island for players to explore and blow up.

Marketing for the game is also looking for bold moves and a big score. Promotions for the game include everything from 360-degree VR videos showing the bird’s-eye view of the world as the main character, Rico Rodriguez, flies through the sky in a custom wingsuit. Taking things several thousand steps further, the Just Cause team will hold a competition where the winner gets his or her own island. That’s right. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One pre-order players that score high points in the game by creatively causing mass destruction have a chance to win a real life island.

[a]listdaily speaks to Rob Rutter, Brand & Marketing Manager at Square Enix for Just Cause 3, to talk destruction, human flight and where they found an island to give away.

Robert Rutter

What would you say it is about the Just Cause series that keeps fans coming back for more

I think the Just Cause series offers gamers something that’s actually missing in a lot of games nowadays – a real sense of fun, action and truly open-ended gameplay. The sheer size of the world, and the options to play around in it and experiment with the physics and destruction is a really appealing mix for a lot of gamers, and it’s something that offers hundreds of hours of fun.

What inspired the creation of The Wingsuit Experience VR app and panoramic video

I was discussing with the Just Cause 3 production team about trying to find a way to create something really immersive to get players into the game world and experience it first-hand before the game launched. Avalanche Studios have created this incredible Mediterranean island republic of Medici and we didn’t just want to release another series of cinematic video trailers, when we’re really selling an interactive experience. We’d recently seen some incredible 360-degree pop videos from groups like The Black Eyed Peas and Boyz Noise and we wondered if it’d be possible to create something similar in a videogame. We found Mindlight, a developer who’d made some tech demos of this type of technology and the production started from there.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=54sF7vcmbKw

How did the Just Cause 3 Win An Island Challenge come into being

The US team had this great idea to run a competition to win an actual island – we thought this sounded really cool, and then the US team ran with the idea and brought it into a great in-game competition for the launch period of Just Cause 3. We’re looking forward to seeing how much Chaos people can create once the game’s out as they try to win this!

How do you grow the Just Cause audience with each game

We don’t bring Just Cause out on an annual cycle like some other open world games, and that brings with it challenges of keeping people aware of Just Cause as a franchise. There’s an element of having to re-educate people and new gamers about what makes Just Cause such a special game. Growing the audience is about trying to build on the great foundations of the previous games, and Just Cause 2 has given us a really strong community base to reach out to and work with on YouTube and other channels to show the world why this game is so awesome.

What are some of challenges in conveying the size, scope, and wild open-world gameplay Just Cause 3 has to offer

There are a lot of things to consider when communicating the size and scope of a game like Just Cause 3, because it’s the type of game where it’s really the sum of its parts. As a player you want to see everything — the huge world, the number of vehicles, the variety of locations and gameplay. It’s really difficult to wrap this all up into an easily understandable message. This is why we brought out our “This Is Just Cause 3” trailer so early at E3. Typically, a “101-style” trailer that explains the game in detail comes very late in a campaign, and we wanted to show the core elements of the game much earlier and in a lot more detail. It’s also why we’ve been working with big YouTubers to show longer gameplay footage, which really shows people the full scope of the game in a very open way.

SteelSeries Talks eSports Partnership With Winterfox

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With eSports continuing to grow at an impressive rate, it should be no surprise that SteelSeries, a company that makes high-quality headsets and peripherals, has announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with the gaming team at Winterfox. The team, which specializes in the team-based shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, will train alongside the SteelSeries team in an effort to hone their skills, while spreading word about the company’s products at the same time.

Travis Hezel

“Our core product and brand values were formed as a combination of our original company DNA and years of meeting industry demands,” said Travis Hezel, SteelSeries’ Global Director of Sponsorships, in a press release earlier in the week. “The Winterfox project addresses a multitude of those values that will progress eSports as a whole, and how sponsors like Steelseries interact with customers, bringing new product developments and more personal connections with eSports athletes.”

[a]listdaily spoke with SteelSeries global director of sponsorships, Travis Hezel, about what made the partnership so appealing. “Well, for some companies they are taking the first step into the landscape but we’ve been here since our inception back in 2001 with the original Icemat,” he explained. “Without selling through those at CPL, we wouldn’t be here today. Since then, we’ve continued to work alongside with players and teams to create the best possible products specifically catered to in-game needs. For us, they’re the most important part of our DNA as a peripheral company.”

As for having a second team come to SteelSeries headquarters, Hezel said, “Having the Winterfox guys come in-house and train from our office was a passion project we had all discussed at-length for quite some time. Flying players to meet with our R&D team annually was always something we held in very high value, but having a team downstairs where we can get immediate feedback at the conceptual level on ideas is priceless.”

“For the players, we’re making sure they have everything they possibly could want. We’ve even put together noise-cancelling headphones for them to practice with before events so they’re absolutely prepared before heading to offline competitions. By this time next year, they’ll improve immensely and hopefully we’ll get to see some Winterfox stickers in game.”

“With the Winterfox roster in-house we’re getting the chance to build a new lineup of products from the ground up with daily input coming from them and overarching input from the rest of our teams globally. By this time next year we’ll be introducing the best products we’ve ever produced,” said Hezel, explaining where SteelSeries is benefiting from the deal.

The team is already hard at work. “Right now Winterfox is competing online in ESEA Invite, CEVO Professional, FaceIt, and Starladder. They’re all now playing full-time, so if there’s a tournament to play in, you can find them there. As for offline events, they just attended IBP Cup and RGN Playoffs in Santa Ana, CA. Hopefully they’ll continue to perform online and qualify for their next round of offline events soon. This, on top of what they’re doing with SteelSeries, should keep them busy for some time.”

When asked about the growth of eSports, Hezel is confident. “The possibilities are endless, to be honest. Having a sold out League of Legends Finals in Madison Square Garden a few weeks back is a huge milestone. Between the new ‘superleagues’ being formed [between ESL Gaming and TBS] for CS:GO, LCS for League of Legends, and the new major season for DOTA 2, things are only going to continue to get bigger in scale. We’re all excited to see how things continue to evolve.”

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Unikrn CEO Explains Why Female Pro Gamers Are Important For ESports

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ESports bookmaker company Unikrn hopes to expand the world of eSports with its investment in an all-female Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) team. Team Unikrn is comprised of Melania “Gina” Mylioti (Greece), Julia “Julie” Strunkowski (Germany), Perrine “Lalit ” Allesiardo (France), Sophia “Kim” Benfakir (France) and Camilla “Parmaviolet” (UK). The newly formed team is currently training and has been fully funded by Unikrn, in conjunction with Luxbet.

rahul sood

Rahul Sood, CEO of Unikrn

Rahul Sood, CEO of Unikrn, explains why it’s important for companies to invest in female pro gamers today, and discusses the opportunities these pros open up to growing the eSports fan base and marketing opportunities, in this exclusive interview.

Unikrn is the first eSports Betting Company to fully own and support a professional women’s CS:GO Team.  We’re partnering with Luxbet, one of our key partners, to make this happen. What this industry needs is more companies supporting a competitive environment that invites both men and women to compete with and against each other in these games. That’s ultimately what makes the future and potential of eSports so cool. Oxent has been supporting female CS:GO eSports for 13 years through stand-alone events. How do you see your support opening up more opportunities for female pros  

How big is the female pro gaming scene for CS:GO

It’s a growing space, there are a number of really great teams – it’s nowhere near as big as the male teams, but I think with more support it’ll only get bigger. As I tell people, I remember when Dana White was quoted as saying, “There will never be a woman in the UFC,” and now their most watched and talked about fighter is a woman. The ladies we hired are amazing at CS:GO, they’re very competitive and they pretty much play all games. CS:GO is their career, so they primarily focus on developing those skills.

How did you go about choosing who to sponsor in this new initiative

One of Unikrn’s staff was the co-founder of MouseSports, a professional CS:GO team based in Germany. He knows a bunch of people in the industry and we had him spend some time scouting for a team so we could make the investment.

Why did you form a new team versus sponsoring an existing one

We currently sponsor MouseSports and we love those guys. We have also sponsored other teams in the past. While we have no problems sponsoring teams, we were actively looking for a way to support women in eSports. Unikrn has the means to create an environment where an all-female team could compete together using the best equipment and the best support. My business partner, Karl, and I are pretty excited about owning a team.

What impact do you feel this first sponsored team will open up to the CS:GO community as a whole

First, I want to say I’m really glad the community has been super supportive of Team Unikrn so far. We’ve been involved in a couple of tournaments to get things going and the reception has been awesome. I hope our initiative gets other large team owners to take on more women and create an even higher level competition. I hope it inspires more girls to get into gaming and technology.

Oxent had dozens of female teams interested in the ESWC League of Legends event during Paris Games Week. What opportunities do you see for sponsoring women pros in other games

I can only hope the opportunities increase. We’re making a big investment here, but it’s totally the right thing to do.

What challenges remain in this post GamerGate environment for female pro gamers

I’ve played a ton of online games with my daughter. I’ve seen how some people behave in the community and it can be horrendous. With that said, most gamers are really cool, and the more anti-bullying sentiment that gets out there, the better the community gets. Toxic communities are the absolute worst – but that usually happens when left unchecked and unregulated. I’m confident things will only get better for female pro gamers.

Given that all eSports tournaments are open to men and women, why are there so few women pro gamers represented today

There is a lot of debate on this. People in the community will tell you that we spent months looking at this space. Some people say there aren’t enough women games because of a “lack of skill,” but I simply don’t buy it. Unikrn and Luxbet decided to create a professional CS:GO team with the same level of investment, coaching and support that male teams have today. This is a big deal, and it’s just a matter of time before more women pro gamers are represented.

How do you see this evolving in the coming years

Ideally, gaming communities will continue to be accepting of all kinds of people, online bullying will wane away as the industry matures, and we’ll see both men and women competing with and against each other in the highest levels of competitions. I would *love* to see big publishers open their doors to this and maybe create undercard events. Team Unikrn will be the first to sign up!

What do female pro gamers open up for sponsors and marketers interested in eSports

If marketers are looking to get in front of Millennials, we’ve got the answer. There are ample opportunities to reach males and females between the ages of 12-34 (and expanding both ways) through all the activities we put together.

How do you see female pro gamers impacting the growth of female (and male) fans

Well, first of all, there are a lot of female fans of eSports out there. Unfortunately, there are just not enough female professional gamers. I see what we’re doing as an opportunity to open it up. Right now, the total fan base for eSports is about the same size as the fan base for NHL hockey. It’s primarily male, but there are a growing number of females in the audience. By 2017, the fan base will be about as big as the NFL, and I can only imagine a great number of them will be female.

How Nvidia Will Bring VR to 130 Million PCs

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With the consumer versions of headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive launching next year, this is a pivotal time for virtual reality technology. With that in mind, Nvidia is poised to help pave the way into the VR era with high-end GeForce graphics cards and software tools like GameWorks VR (which has been incorporated into Unreal Engine 4) to power the immersive experiences and games.

However, there are still some significant obstacles to overcome. For example, virtual reality experiences demand 7x the performance of a typical PC game running at 1080p.

VRX Keynote Final3 Page 03[a]listdaily spoke to Jason Paul, Nvidia’s General Manager for GeForce Experience, Shield portable, and virtual reality about the company plan to grow “the installed base of GeForce VR Ready PCs to grow from 5 million today, to over 130 million by 2020.” He compares the task to climbing Mount Everest, which coincidentally, is exactly what users will be able to do from the comfort of their homes with the Everest VR experience, powered by Nvidia technology.

jason paul 249x273VR technology is very impressive, but requires a hefty hardware investment right now. How long do you think it will take for VR to become more accessible

Put me down for $100 on 2 years, 8 months, and 18 days.

Seriously though… while prices will certainly come down over time, VR will be in reach for many next year. VR ready PCs have already been announced for under $1,000, and there are tens of millions of customers who can become VR-ready simply by upgrading their graphics card.

Can you go into detail about how Nvidia plans to grow the number of VR Ready PCs to “130 million by 2020”

Two parts. First, is Moore’s law — Nvidia GPUs will get faster and faster with VR class performance coming to increasingly mainstream price points.

Second, Nvidia is developing software technologies such as GameWorks VR that delivers substantial performance improvements, enabling even more GeForce PCs to meet the VR performance bar. The net effect of GameWorks VR is a doubling of the VR ready PC installed base in 2016, and an additional 30 million PCs in 2020.

How will Nvidia help promote VR technology when there are currently so few opportunities for consumers to try it out

Nvidia has been on the road, bringing VR demos to each corner of the globe from Brazil, to Korea, to Germany to Seattle. But physical events will only reach so many people. So, we are helping developers build amazing VR experiences like Solfar’s Everest VR or Epic Games and Weta Digital’s Thief in the Shadows, and evangelizing them online to our network of 200 million GeForce customers.

How will Gameworks VR technology help encourage more widespread adoption of VR

In VR, there is no middle ground. The experience is either amazing or nauseating. GameWorks VR delivers tangible improvements in performance and latency that help make VR amazing. Nvidia encourages adoption by ensuring VR experiences are good experiences.

How important are experience projects like Everest VR compared to video games in helping to promote virtual reality technology

Most people understand the concept of video games in virtual reality: 3D world, digital characters. It makes sense.

Virtual reality experiences like Everest VR help expand people’s imaginations to the potential of VR. It can be an educational tool. A creative medium. A way to travel.

It helps expand the addressable market and build excitement for VR beyond us core gamers, which I believe is fundamental for VR’s widespread adoption.

Those who still don’t know much about VR may be apprehensive about the emerging technology. What would you say to help to get them comfortable with adopting virtual reality

Give it a try! I’ve had the opportunity to take a lot of people through their first VR experience, and the responses are simply awesome. One Twitch broadcaster recently told me after a demo “this is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life!” But not all VR is created equal. Try an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headset, powered by a GeForce GTX GPU, for the best experience.

Starbreeze CEO On Lighting Up ‘John Wick VR’ Game

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John Wick, starring Keanu Reeves as the title character, features a highly skilled hitman who comes out of retirement and seeks revenge against mobsters who killed his dog. A sequel is currently in the works, but to help ramp up the anticipation, Lionsgate has partnered with Starbreeze Studios to develop a virtual reality first-person shooter game based on the movie. The John Wick VR Game is expected to release during the spring of 2016 for all major headsets including the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR.

Other Lionsgate VR experiences include the Insurgent: Shattered Reality, based on the Divergent movie and book series, and The Hunger Games Virtual Reality Experience, both done in partnership with Samsung. While those are 360-degree movie promotions, John Wick VR is expected to be a fully featured standalone game.

Overkill Software, a Starbreeze studio, is uniquely qualified studio to create a John Wick game. Not only is it currently developing a VR game based on The Walking Dead series for StarVR (Starbreeze’s own VR headset), but one of its most prominent games is Payday 2, an over-the-top heist-themed shooter that added John Wick as a playable character last year. More John Wick tie-ins are expected as the sequel comes closer to release.

[a]listdaily speaks to Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint about creating and promoting virtual reality games and movie tie-ins.

Bo Andersson

How do you promote an experience that requires emerging technology like virtual reality 

It’s really about trying the experience, if you’ve never tried it it’s hard to comprehend how immersive it can actually be. We’re very active in play testing and making sure to get different VR experiences into the hands of as many people as possible.

How integral is established media, like movies, to getting the public used to the idea of VR 

Well, it’s one thing to do a movie theatre setting within VR as a first test or simple demo, but we believe immersing the user in an VR-tailored experience really does the trick. Rather than just putting a movie into a VR headset, why not tailor an experience directly for it, where the user can actually interact with the setting and characters of the same movie

With so many VR headsets releasing, including the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and Starbreeze’s own StarVR Project, how do you decide which brand to back 

We’re really looking to provide the best experiences over-all in VR. We now have our own hardware, which we acquired partly to be able to be the best in creating content for VR. Also having the highest specced headset with an outstanding quality of course helped in the acquisition process. So far we’ve said we’ll try to support as much hardware as it makes sense for us to do. Steam OpenVR will be one of the first services we’ll support, and through there potentially several hardware manufacturers.

Given how VR has a limited audience right now, how will experiences like the John Wick VR game and The Walking Dead Experience remain on the forefront as these headsets become available to consumers 

As with any game, being there as a launch product for a platform is usually a nice place to be, you do get to be a part of something new and outstanding where people are really excited and eager to test new things. But we’re of course also invested in bringing more experiences to VR in the times to come. VR isn’t something new per-se, it’s been around for a good many years, but it’s only now we have the fidelity to actually provide feasible experiences to the masses. We can already now imagine and test how to best immerse our users in our products, but it’s really a learning experience for us all in the VR business. What we do today will surely last but we’re absolutely ecstatic to see what we can do in the near future.

What is the key difference between promoting a VR experience and a game developed for traditional consoles and PCs

Getting it into the hands of the customers, no doubt. Anyone who’s tested VR will be able to relate and understand what a VR experience is about, but the key to unlocking the market is really to get it into the hands of the user.

Sega Discusses Dr. Eggman’s Diabolical Twitter Takeover

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Sonic fans around the globe had a very special treat last week when Dr. Eggman hacked into Sonic s official Twitter page to wreak havoc.

The original idea came about a short time ago here in Sega’s new offices in Los Angeles. Aaron Webber (PR and Social Media Manager), Kenneth Lindenbaum (Senior Marketing Manager) and I were talking about some of the terrific Sonic-specific elements we have to work with across TV, licensed products and games to surprise and delight fans, said Ivo Gerscovich, Chief Brand Officer for Sonic, in speaking with [a]listdaily. Finding unique ways to bring the Sonic the Hedgehog characters to life quickly became the focal point of our discussion. After brainstorming a bit more, we honed in on Dr. Eggman’s hilarious antics and actor Mike Pollock’s 12 years voicing the zany character.

For Gerscovich, the idea felt very natural. The day of the takeover, Mike Pollock worked with Sonic s social media team and longtime Sonic writers to engage with fans in real-time. Dr. Eggman responded on Twitter with personalized messages and egged on celebrities like Kel Mitchell and Roger Craig Smith for nearly an entire day with the hashtag #AskEggman. 

The idea of being able to ask him wild questions in a sort of AMA style event and actually hearing his wacky responses felt like a powerful mix, he said. We wanted to go even further with this concept and make it more interactive by throwing in some entertaining video that ran while fans interacted with him in an unprecedented way.

Sonic fans loved it, praising Sonic s Twitter account and creating all kinds of fan art to show their appreciation as #AskEggman began trending.

Twitter has been a major priority for the Sonic brand over the last few months, said Kenneth Lindenbaum, Senior Marketing Manager for Sonic. We did not want to simply regurgitate expected marketing directives on our social channels like check out this new trailer or pre-order here. We wanted to be more engaging than that.

“On social, we re pioneering a new strategy that throws the old, boring, marketing text out the window, and replaces it with something fun, new, and engaging. It fits perfectly with Sonic s signature attitude and the tone and style that once made him so popular,” said Aaron Webber, PR and Social Media Manager for Sonic.

Naturally, doing a live global fan event like this while producing real time audio and video together with the voice actor presented a slew of risks and challenges. After a lot of preparation together with Ayzenberg, it was all systems go!” said Gerscovich.

In the end, all of the elements came together and culminated in a rewarding real time social experience for fans and the Sega team.

Watching the Dr. Eggman Twitter Takeover unfold in real time, seeing the fans light up as word quickly spread about the surprise event, and then seeing the analytics was a real highlight for the new Sonic team.

https://twitter.com/LamerGamer44/status/665333264777809920

VideoAmp Talks $15M Investment To Develop And Market Its Video Ad Platform

BY

Investors are lining up outside VideoAmp’s headquarters with wheelbarrows filled with cash. It’s a turn of events co-founder Ross McCray s machine-learning algorithms likely could never calculate. After accumulating $2.2 million in seed financing last December, the Santa Monica, California-based startup procured a $15 million Series A investment from the German entertainment media network RTL Group. VideoAmp is a video ad platform built to buy, optimize and measure video ads across TV, mobile and desktop.

“VideoAmp fits perfectly into RTL Group’s digital strategy as it is complementary to our current ad tech businesses SpotX and Clypd,” said Rhys Noelke, RTL Group s senior vice president of strategy. “The transaction with VideoAmp positions RTL Group as the first European broadcaster to invest in the increasingly important field of cross-field expertise. With this move into the digital space with VideoAmp, RTL Group strengthens the advertising technology arm of the recently created RTL Digital Hub.”

McCray, who serves as VideoAmp’s 24-year-old CEO, and chief business officer Jay Prasad, joined [a]listdaily to discuss the software company’s immediate future and upcoming marketing tactics.

What are some of ways the newly acquired $15 million will be used? What does having the backing of big media companies like the RTL Group mean for VideoAmp, and the industry as a whole? 

Ross: We’re using the funds to continue developing our engineering, data science and sales departments. We also plan to do a lot of product research/white papers next year. Having RTL gives us scale and proves the global trend toward audience-based buying and selling.

What’s next as you build out capability? 

Ross: We spent most of 2015 heads-down building our product suite and opening it up the market. 2016 is really all about taking what we have, making it better and scaling.

With recent investments from European media companies in L.A. video companies Bertelsmann/MTG, et al … what are the opportunities for brands in today’s online video landscape? 

Jay: I believe that this is in relation to brand advertisers and online video: Brands have a lot more opportunity as digital video has become a format with multiple “screen factors” versus just YouTube. Creative options have never been so plentiful, between sequential storytelling across screens, creating custom content for SnapChat, brands can be omnipresent without being oppressive.

How do you see the future of video developing? 

Ross: It’s very clear that the market is shifting toward total video and tearing down the walls of TV and digital.

How do you market to buyers that VideoAmp plans, purchases and measures as a one-stop shop? 

Jay: Buyers of media and technology of course would like the simplicity of buying from a one-stop shop. That however may not be in their long term best interests. The most important criteria seems to be transparency, efficiency and automating certain functions. For the most part that s done by working with the best of breed solutions.