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December 30, 2006

Warren Ellis writing about Second Life
I have to admit, I've always been a little uneasy when posting material or links to material about Second Life. For one, it's not my domain. Ilya Vedrashko is at home there, I am not. Not yet. Still, given the possibilities this growing virtual world lays before us, I have and do write about it.

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December 29, 2006

Google Earth Games & Emotions

marsucks

Nice article on Gamasutra (Link) discussing an Intel team’s attempts to turn Google Earth into a videogame called “Mars Sucks”. This is one of those things that I imagine a lot of people are interested in seeing develop, along with multi-user/player interactivity. The question that comes to my mind is: with all that gaming horsepower in their corporate stable, what is Microsoft intending to do with Virtual Earth (besides billboards)? Sometimes they don’t seem to be following the Metaverse Plan (reLink).

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Is Neuronet A Scam? {Update 12}
There’s a bit of press (hype?) making the rounds on something called Neuronet (Link or maybe this Link), a supposed plan for a fiber optic-based, virtual reality-centric network intended to be separate from what we now call the Internet. It would, according to the website, supposedly be “the first network designed from the ground up specifically for the transmission of real-time virtual reality data.” Considering that I’ve argued that the future of online Metaverse-style technology isn’t just 3D but a mashup of both 2D (websites) and 3D (virtual worlds), the exclusion of the current Internet rang alarm bells in my head. This doesn’t make sense to me, so I did a bit of digging.

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December 28, 2006

Burger King on the Xbox



A few months ago, Burger King was considering doing some Xbox games and eventually confirmed the decision. November saw the launch of three titles, titles which apparently only sold until the 24th of December.

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December 27, 2006

In The News..
Well, we're back, after a somewhat tumultuous Christmas. Starting tomorrow, we'll be going back to regular articles as I trim my feeds, something I wasn't able to do in the last few days' uproar. Until then though, here are a few things for you to read over a cup of mulled wine (if you're so inclined).

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December 22, 2006

Virtual Pain Management Here
While this subject may appear to stray from or merely lurk at the border of this blog's area of coverage, it is in fact rather well connected with everything, as per the Great Plan. Or perhaps, in the bothersome throes of this treacherous flu, I find this story to be soothing. It seems NVidia is putting a shoulder into developing a virtual reality system to help reduce pain for burn victims.

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December 21, 2006

Snippet: Office Supply Store Campaign
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a piece of hardware was working, not even a mouse!

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Snippet: Lexus in Atari
This might be old news for some of you but Lexus has signed a deal with Atari inc. to have Lexus models included in the Xbox 360 title "Test Drive Unlimited". Hurray?

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New Ad Network for Online Games
Mochi Media announces the creation of MochiAds, a network serving dynamic ads to casual online games.
In their own words:

MochiAds is the world's first advertising network for casual games. Comprised of two facets, MochiAds enables advertisers to reach a highly sought-after demographic through engaging, virally distributed Flash games and simultaneously provides game publishers an effective, non-obtrusive revenue channel to support their creative talents. Together, MochiAds offers a powerful and deep-reaching platform to deliver a memorable brand message.
http://mochimedia.com/

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December 19, 2006

Snapshot Experiment: Where Would You Place Ads?
For today, I bring you a small play experiment. A short block of questions have been handed out to five people as an imagination exercise. That is to say, the results have only minimal statistical relevance. It's just a glimpse on where various gamers would place ads and crafting conclusions such as "40% of the interviewees have said that [..]" would be rather silly. Also, serious answers where not a demand. Short of  combinations of four-letter words and terms such as advertising, they could and did answer any way they wanted to.

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December 18, 2006

Counter-Strike, Now With Ads


While going through my extended reading list, I (completely accidentally, I admit) ran into an interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi, on a big CS site, called..well..CS-Nation. Apparently, Valve and IGA Worldwide have started working together in order to bring ads to Counter-Strike. The ads will not be optional and they'll be tested in CS 1.6 only at first.

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IBM’s Wladawsky-Berger Discusses Second Life

Just a quick post to alert people to an article on C|Net, “IBM’s virtual pioneer” (Link). The quote I find most intriguing:

We need to make it easy to interoperate with other virtual worlds on the Internet and be able to go back and forth between virtual worlds and Web sites in an easy way. The problem now is the lack of standards like we had with HTTP, HTML (languages for sending and describing Web pages), etc. We need to create them across virtual-world platforms as well as Web sites.

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December 17, 2006

Market research in Second Life
More from 3pointD - on a December 12th article, there's news of a "first life" market research institute moving into SL. Reperes Second Life is a French agency. The front page of their SL branch makes the following claims:

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3pointD: IBM in Second Life
This month, Mark Wallace has two new articles on IBM moving into Second Life, on the 13th, respectively the 14th. Following an October article, 3pointD announces that IBM is setting up a business group to focus on virtual worlds and will make some of its SL private islands available to the grand public.

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December 8, 2006

GameDaily BIZ: Using In-Game Ads to Draw in Your Target Audience
On GameDaily BIZ, Ran Cohen, Director of Emerging Media at Eyeblaster, does a piece on in-game advertising. The article starts with a brief plug for the company then proceeds to present the options and oportunities advertisers looking into the video games world have. The second part of the article gives a partly-statistic answer to the "Why advertise in Games?" question. Information on "What Advertisers Should Look for in Partners" follows. Finally, the "Finishing touch" :


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December 5, 2006

Press Release: Take-Two signs with Double Fusion
Take-Two Interactive Software has announced signing an agreement with Double Fusion, concerning the sale of in-game advertising oportunities in titles from Take-Two labels 2k and 2k sports.

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December 4, 2006

SL: Official Guide Now Shipping
Business Communicators of Second Life announces  Second Life: The Official Guide. The announcement specifies that the guide "promises to provide some of the practical aspects of operating in Second Life" and   "includes the written and unwritten rules, the geography of Second Life, and information about the economy".

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December 1, 2006

Philips Design to enter Second Life
From the Press Release:

Eindhoven, The Netherlands – Philips Design and Rivers Run Red, the virtual world design agency, have signed a collaboration agreement to establish a Philips Design presence within the imaginary, on-line community known as Second Life. Philips Design intends to use it’s presence in Second Life to gain feedback on innovation concepts, engage residents in co-creation and gain a deeper understanding of potential opportunities in this virtual environment.
[...]

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WSJ Online: EA expects holiday boost from in-game ads
Wall Street Journal, November 30

Quotes:

  • Jeff Brown, an EA spokesman, said the Redwood City, Calif., company, the world's largest games publisher by sales, estimates it will bring in between $4 million and $5 million in advertising revenue during the holiday quarter from Need for Speed: Carbon, a version of the game that EA began selling earlier this month.
  • Just under half of Need for Speed: Carbon's advertising revenue will come from "dynamic" advertisements, which are regularly transmitted over the Internet and inserted into the action of the game, a source of revenue that hasn't existed in previous EA games.

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