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November 30, 2007

Casual Games Services To Keep An Eye On
Kongregate - tagline: play free games and upload your own. Previously examined in this article.
Moola - same concept, with a twist. This blog interviewed Moola's CEO earlier this month (link).
Meebo - started out as a web IM service supporting most major chat platforms. Then extended their platform to games. See Techcrunch for details.

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Venture Capitalist Sees Growing Investment Opportunities In Serious Games
What makes Serious Games attractive to investors


Via: Richard Carey - Digital Media Solutions, Serious Games & Learning Smiluations

As anticipated on my prior posts focused on Serious Games Market Size, funding has started to become available from foundations, governmental agencies, non-profits and venture capitalists.

Continue reading "Venture Capitalist Sees Growing Investment Opportunities In Serious Games" »

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November 29, 2007

Serious Games Combining Mobile Learning & Virtual Worlds

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future


Via: Virtual World News

The Serious Games Institute has partnered with Cisco and Giunti Labs to turn all of Coventry University into a meshed real-world/virtual-world learning environment.

To help the Institute build a platform for modeling the real campus, students at Coventry can activate educational content based on their physical movement across the real campus or the digital movement across the virtual campus.

Continue reading "Serious Games Combining Mobile Learning & Virtual Worlds" »

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Quote Of The Day
"Don’t delay or interrupt the gamer at any time with advertising, or require them to click anything to get rid of it. [..] Give them something valuable in return - obviously a free game is great. Make advertising an exchange."
Gamasutra - David Perry's Lessons On Free-To-Play From His Year 'Off'

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November 26, 2007

Second Slice: Serious Games Embed Ambitious Marketing

Serious Games challenging us to play a new marketing platform



Via: One Up Marketing Ltd.
and One Degree – Internet Marketing Insiders

A new Canadian online digital magazine, Second Slice, focuses on issues of marketing in virtual worlds.
According to its publisher and VP at One Up Marketing, Mario Parisé. Second Slice is “an attempt to give marketers who are active in virtual worlds a stronger and more unified voice. It all got started when the more mainstream business press decided to go on a Second Life bashing spree, ridiculing marketers and businesses going in-world.”

Continue reading "Second Slice: Serious Games Embed Ambitious Marketing" »

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Serious Games Metrics: Understanding Customer Behavior In Virtual Worlds

Serious Games and Serious Metrics


Each point in the figure above represents a visitor's position on a one minute interval. Over time, this creates a type of heat map where a land owner can determine where visitors spend time in their virtual land. Red points highlight where a visitor entered an extended idle period.

Via: Maya Realities
The importance of understanding customer behavior is critical for a successful business. Until recently, the necessary tools have not existed for virtual world environments like Second Life.

Continue reading "Serious Games Metrics: Understanding Customer Behavior In Virtual Worlds" »

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Serious Games: Bigger Than Movies In Netherlands
Via: Sered Second Life - (Serious) Games Booming Business in The Netherlands

On Webwereld's yesterday news: "Nederlandse Gamesindustrie groter dan filmbranche", which means: in The Netherlands games are bigger than movies - in some respects.

The article cites the chairman of the Dutch gaming industry organization NLGD, who claims that, in 2007, the game industry will employ over 1500 people and generate an annual estimated turnover of one billion dollars - more than the whole Dutch movie industry.

Continue reading "Serious Games: Bigger Than Movies In Netherlands" »

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November 23, 2007

In-game Ads and Level Design
via Develop: Can in-game ads aid level design?
According to Frank Sagnier, European MD for Double Fusion, in-game ads can be used to monitor and track which locations the players of a particular game find popular. Hence, they're useful for the developer.  “It’s difficult to know what environments work when you’re designing a game in a vacuum, but when it comes to MMOs you can update the game based on player behaviour. Really, consumers can control the design of a game. Because we can track the data on what they are looking at and doing, we can help developers design their games better." Note that Double Fusion recently launched a technology that separates adding in-game advertising from the actual development process - hence games that have been around for a while can still use it easily. What Sagnier's pitch doesn't mention however is that such tracking systems can exist outside advertising programs. Still, I suppose that's obvious. Either way, it's not a bad point he's making, is it now?

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November 21, 2007

Vox Populi, episode I
At the beginning of this year, around the same time when this blog published gamevertising related ramblings by yours (mentally ill) truly, some folks on a forum out there were revealing their fears and proclaiming their mistrust on a thread I only recently came upon.

Mind you, you'll find discussions like this everywhere (stop throwing the term 'conversation' everywhere, it doesn't make you look more insightful). I simply stopped on this one because it conveniently touches upon some points I can use. The thread goes widely off-topic around page 3 so I extracted some of the relevant messages below.

Continue reading "Vox Populi, episode I" »

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Gaming's Most Influential Outsiders Include Serious Games Groundbreakers

Serious Games sphere of influence

Via: Educational Games Research

Next Generation has recently published an article entitled, “Gaming’s 30 Most Influential Outsiders", categorized by the field they are most closely associated with: Entertainers in Other Mediums, Politicos, Academics and Engineers. Under the Academics group, three out of six so-called "outsiders" are (I'm glad to acknowledge) Serious Games ground breakers.

Continue reading "Gaming's Most Influential Outsiders Include Serious Games Groundbreakers" »

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November 20, 2007

AOL Relaunching games.com
"AOL announced today that it has relaunched the gaming site Games.com to broaden its advertising capabilities and demographic reach by creating a new look, easier navigation and a more diverse library of games. The retooled site, which will add twenty new games by year’s end, will also facilitate collaboration among players by offering user-generated game reviews, tips and ratings.
To provide partners with multiple advertising opportunities, the new site will feature deep, in-game advertising integrations in several online games such as Bingo and Solitaire. In addition, pre-roll ads and in-game interstitials will also provide advertisers with a variety of methods to target an engaged audience. In an effort to expand the site’s demographic reach, Games.com will offer players of all ages a variety of gaming choices, while AOL’s games.aol.com will still target traditional adult gamers."
Full press release

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November 19, 2007

When Retail Goes Virtual
I caught a whiff of this piece on the Guardian earlier this month, and having finally read it, all I can say is, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster someone else is starting to talk about the impact virtual worlds will almost certainly have on real world commerce. Victor Keegan has fired a nice warning flare in his article, “Virtual China looks for real benefits” (Link). From the piece:

Continue reading "When Retail Goes Virtual" »

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Serious Games Pioneering How We Will Learn & Work In The Future



For most people, video games mean entertainment, like TV or the movies. But their
true meaning may be much bigger, impacting every aspect of our world, from education
to business, society and culture

Via: IBM - The Future Of Computer Games

IBM explores how video games may impact every aspect of our world, from education to business, society and culture.

Continue reading "Serious Games Pioneering How We Will Learn & Work In The Future" »

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November 17, 2007

Interview with Arlen Ritchie, Moola's CEO
They call themselves a hot new advergaming company. Blogger opinions are already split on this, with some calling it a great idea and others arguing that it’s nothing but a fishy scheme. Last week, Moola’s CEO, Arlen Ritchie, gave me a presentation that stretched slightly over one hour. He gave the demo, I asked the questions. The result is below, God help us all.

Continue reading "Interview with Arlen Ritchie, Moola's CEO" »

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Microsoft Shaping The Serious Games Movement Into A Multi-Billion Dollar Market
As Microsoft Corp. announced on Wednesday plans for its new platform dubbed Microsoft ESP, available as of January 2008, “that enables the innovative use of visual simulations for immersive learning and decision-making, supports PC-based commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software, and enables simulations to be built faster and more cost-effectively, I’ve been considering two potential major implications for the Serious Games Market.

Continue reading "Microsoft Shaping The Serious Games Movement Into A Multi-Billion Dollar Market" »

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November 16, 2007

Virtual Goods… the Movie

This past summer I’d mentioned a summit on virtual goods and linked to a TechCrunch article related to the panel, “Are Virtual Goods the Next Big Business Model?” (reLink). A video of that discussion, chaired by Susan Wu of Charles River Ventures, was posted shortly after the panel, and while I managed to watch the first few introductory minutes of it, I neither finished watching it nor returned to it. Until now, that is, after a reminder from a post on The Meshverse Journal (Link).

Continue reading "Virtual Goods… the Movie" »

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Agency Explains Toyota WOW Ad
The site of Kevin Roberts, Saatchi, has a machinima video of the creative couple behind the Toyota's World of Warcraft ad.
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/11/agency-explains-toyota-wow-ad.html

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HBS Event From The Reality Of Virtual Worlds To Casual & Serious Games
"The Business of Games: From the Reality of Virtual Worlds to Casual & Serious Games", Creators Panel, Entrepreneurship Track Event, was held on November 13, 2007 at Harvard Business School Association of Boston.

Slides of the presentations will be available at www.Etherplay.com/HBSAB over the weekend.

Presenters and panelists include Alexander "Sasha" Gimpelson (host), Ben Sawyer, Steve Meretzky, Bill Kung and Daniel O’Connell Offner,
Original post: http://elianealhadeff.blogspot.com/2007/11/hbs-event-from-reality-of-virtual.html

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November 14, 2007

CCP Releases EVE Online in-game economy report
evereport.PNG
This week, CCP released the first quarterly economic newsletter for EVE online (pdf here). Compiled by their in-house economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson (don't try to pronounce that at home), the report contains everything you wanted to know about EVE's economy and, I should say, way more. Said report is split into three parts - player demographics, macroeconomics and price levels. Proceed with caution.

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November 13, 2007

FreeRice Serious Game Has Generated 1Bn Grains Of Rice
Serious Games challenging us to play a better world


Via: BBC NEWS - Web Game Provides Rice For Hungry

FreeRice game has now generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people for one day.

The game tests the vocabulary of participants. For each click on a correct answer, the website donates money to buy 10 grains of rice.

Continue reading "FreeRice Serious Game Has Generated 1Bn Grains Of Rice" »

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November 12, 2007

Ads? What ads?


A cute mock video I found that I just had to post. Even though it was made as a joke, what's ironic is that this is exactly the way a lot of people perceive in-game advertising. Gamers fear that it's gonna end up just like in the video and well,  I presume there are enough marketers out there who envision it like that. If you're one of the latter, this video wasn't a "how to". Har.

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50 Game Innovations
An excellent feature (page-by-page, on one page) in Business Week listing some of the most important innovations in the video game medium over the past 30 years. Why should anyone care? Because a lot of the game innovations spill out to other media: interfaces, AI, 3D imagery are only a few such areas. Here are my favorites from the list:

Continue reading " 50 Game Innovations" »

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Serious Gaming In A Voyage Inside Virtual Worlds

Serious Games changing our society, our work and even our dreams


Following my recent post Serious Games As 3D Workspaces, addressing how I-Maginer helps to lower logistical constraints by providing an alternative to conference calls and live meeting with 3D workspaces, I-MAGINER and Enjeux-Les-Echos, the French business magazine that monthly analyses the major economic, financial, social and cultural trends, are inviting us for a journey inside virtual worlds

Continue reading "Serious Gaming In A Voyage Inside Virtual Worlds" »

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November 10, 2007

More charity games
Following Stefan's post, I couldn't help but remember the Australian Red vs. Blue, basically a Halo 3 Xbox campaign  with a twist. Tagged "You play and we pay!", the website lets you choose one of two teams (each affiliated with a charity foundation) and then take a golf challenge. Depending on your score, you win a certain amount of money for your team, money which will then be donated by Microsoft to your team's supported charity. The idea is pretty cool, all things considered and the site looks great. At more than 650.000 games played, it also seems to have caught on. (link via Adverblog)

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Serious games at their best: FreeRice
Found this great serious game through the BBC: FreeRice is an advertising supported game to generate food donations through the United Nations World Food Program.
It's an extremely elegant, simple idea - a little game (a vocabulary game in this case), some ads on the page, and the revenue of the ads is translated directly into food donations. By linking the game results in a very concrete way (every right answer generates a donation of 20 grains of rice) it includes that crucial bit of feel-good factor without being sentimental.
Nicely done, and I'm very pleased to see some big name advertisers such as Macy's and American Express supporting this initiative.

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The dutch strike again: VW game
Somehow there seem to be a lot of nice advergames, virals and wellmade sites coming from little holland recently. This game from Volkswagen is another great example. Very cute execution, a fun way to spend a minute, and a softly softly conveyed message - VW was here for you in the last 60 years. I liked it (and of course I got a 100% score :), this is how advergaming should be done. Go check it out. Although it's in dutch, it's easy to play - click 'speel het spel' and match the song to the decade.
Found through Adverblog.

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November 8, 2007

Links for 08-11-2007
  • short piece on Google and in-game advertising;
  • nice Escapist article on games and storytelling - although if you come from the business side of things, I fear you'll find it rather hermetic;
  • EA will donate the original SimCity game to the OLPC rigs;
  • virtual worlds used for analytics - via Virtual World News - fun stuff, watch this space for a more detailed piece on it;
  • good Terra Nova article on virtual worlds, freedoms and brands.

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November 7, 2007

Another ad-supported MMO
Via Business Wire:
"SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Game advertising provider Double Fusion has partnered with online game operator Aeria Games to drive additional revenues for their free-to-download massively-multiplayer online racing game Project Torque through in- and around-game advertising. Double Fusion will provide the technology that enables dynamic ad placements, and Double Fusion’s sales force will manage the sale of advertising to advertisers and agencies in the North American and European markets. The combination of advertising revenues and revenues from digital item sales allows Aeria to offer Project Torque to gamers for no monthly fee.

Continue reading "Another ad-supported MMO" »

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Mobile Games Market Forecast
Juniper Research released a study estimating that the mobile games market will reach $16bn in 2012. Right now, the user generated revenues stand at 5 billion dollars, out of which China & the Far East make up 2.7bn (estimated to get to 5.7bn in 2012).
According to the study, mobile games are still a low-penetration area, with only 7.2% (~215m) mobile users downloading games. Also, the study estimates that the number of 3G users will grow up to four times (from 200m to 800m) by 2010, and to 1.4bn by 2012.

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IBM Introduces Serious Game To Develop Business Skills

Via: IBM Press Room

Following my prior post Serious Games For Improving Business Process Management, IBM today introduced a new video game designed to help university students and young professionals develop a combination of business and information technology (IT) skills. Thousands of universities around the world now have access to Innov8, IBM’s new “serious game,” available at no charge.

Continue reading "IBM Introduces Serious Game To Develop Business Skills" »

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China's Serious Games: Sizeable As Its Economic Growth
Via: The Associated Press - China Plans Virtual World for Commerce

China's government is building a vast virtual world dubbed "Beijing Cyber Recreation District," which founders say will help the manufacturing superpower evolve into virtual commerce.

Some supply chain experts say the project is impossibly grandiose in its goal to provide direct links between tens of thousands of Chinese manufacturers and millions of individual customers around the world.

Continue reading "China's Serious Games: Sizeable As Its Economic Growth" »

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November 6, 2007

Manufacturers in Virtuality