Business & Games: The Blog

Serious Games challenging us to play a better education

Via: Edutopia by Sara Bernard

To the excitement of many youngsters, computer and video games have entered the educational playing field. Research increasingly supports the cognitive benefits of such games -- not to mention the fact that most kids today are already playing them and loving them -- and now educators and game designers are finding new and exciting ways to embed curricular content into complex yet fascinating play environments.

Continue reading "Edutopia Poll: Are Serious Games Effective Teaching Tools?" »

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Best AR demos poised to revolutionize video games

Via: Games Alfresco - Top 10 Augmented Reality Demos That Will Revolutionize Serious Games

Ori Inbar is the founder of Pookatak Games - a video game company; formerly senior vice president at SAP, and eternally passionate about interactive entertainment, he also shares my passion for Augmented Reality Games.

Continue reading "Serious Games Taking The Pulse Of Augmented Reality" »

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        In-game advertising – it’s been around for a while but only became a hot subject in the past few years.  Brands, consumers, media – they’re all talking about it and everyone has a different take on the subject. The chart above is meant to illustrate a few of the stances gamers take on the subject and where these stances fall, on a Skepticism/Believer and Purism/Opportunism system. Comments and explanations inside.

Continue reading "Framework: in-game advertising" »

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Via: Game du Jour and Insolita Studios

Game du Jour is the first “One Deal a Day” website for indie and casual PC games. Every day of the week, GameDuJour.com sells one popular downloadable game at a steep discount. But the clock is ticking and each deal expires at the end of the day.

Continue reading "Establishing A Serious Process For Game Distribution Deals" »

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via here. 

"The future of our industry lies in our capacity to create and develop brands that captivate consumers and that present a myriad of opportunities for the full spectrum of entertainment, be it video games, books, movies or other media," says Ubisoft's CEO, Yves Guillemot. 

Naturally, it looks like a Tom Clancy MMO will pop upsometime in the future, with initial estimated production costs of between 40 and 50 million USD.  That or, as the more cynical minded commentators point out, Ubisoft will just use the name rights to churn out versions of the same game all over again, EA style. At any rate, this blogger heartily approves of more non 'sword and sorcery' MMOs. That is, you know, assuming they're any good.

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This windmill farm in the recently released SimCity Societies was brought to you by BP. Other energy sources in the game are coal and nuclear plants, but those are unbranded, and I haven't seen any other kinds of branded assets in the game either. I haven't unlocked all the building yet, and apparently there are other clean BP-branded power generators and a BP truck. You can remove the BP logos by isntalling this fan-made update.

Continue reading "BP in SimCity Societies, Ikea in Sims" »

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"Harmonix Music Systems Inc., developers of the music video game Rock Band and its predecessor franchise Guitar Hero, reports that more than 6 million game levels based on songs have been purchased through its online music store since the game launched in November 2007.

Since launch, Cambridge-based Harmonix has been adding downloadable content weekly, and now has more than 70 songs available for purchase, officials said. With an average cost of about $2 each, the downloaded tracks could have brought in up to $12 million additional revenue to Harmonix since the game launched."
-- Mass High Tech

Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2008/03/rockband-sells-6-million-song-downloads.html

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In-theater games such as NewsBreaker will soon become a part of the usual moviegoing experience. Our friends at Brand Experience Labs say that they have partnered with National CineMedia and will begin "rolling AudienceGames out to the top 20 markets on about 750 screens" after the initial test.

"National CineMedia operates the largest digital in-theatre network in North America through a venture of AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, and Regal Entertainment Group, the three largest theatre operators in the U.S. Our national theatre network includes over 15,000 screens in over 1,100 theatres in 47 states, reaching more than 600 million moviegoers annually."

Very exciting, especially combined with industry rumors that 3D cinema is coming back big time.

Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-theater-games-come-to-theater-near.html

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Serious Games for futuristic unified communications

Press Release: Orlando, FL - March 20, 2008

The Future of Collaboration: Virtual Worlds Integrated With Unified Communications

IBM and Forterra Systems are working to solve an age-old problem that challenges U.S. security and costs taxpayers millions.

Forterra plans to develop a futuristic unified communications solution code-named "Babel Bridge" that could allow US intelligence agencies to use a common graphical collaboration system to instantly communicate within a virtual world.

Continue reading "Serious Games Solving "Tower of Babel" For Intelligence Agencies" »

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More data for your powerpoints - US in-game advertising projections

Why game criticism is important - by Greg Costikyan

NY Times - online games for kids - they are grooooooooooowing

Ian Bogost reviews ICED (I Can End Deportation)

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Serious Games expanding play space concept in education

Richard Carey’s has just posted a great article - Extreme Growth, which highlights some of the hard numbers behind the subscription growth of current MMOGs from the MMOG Chart updated website.

Continue reading "MMOGs: Serious Games Creating A Model For Collaborative Learning Worldwide" »

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Serious Games engaging pre-college students in Biz simulations

Via: Deloitte & Touche USA LLP - Virtual Team Challenge for High Schools (VTCHS)Helps Student Learn About Careers in Accounting and Consulting

DELOITTE & TOUCHE USA HAS partnered with BrandGames to bring business education up to speed, with The Virtual Team Challenge for High Schools (VTCHS) Event--an online simulator that lets teens learn business best practices and deal with real-world ethical and financial situations.

Continue reading "Serious Games Dealing With Real-World Ethics & Finance" »

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Serious Games challenging us to play in the mobile space

Via: Global Games Industry News Blog

Following my prior posts iPhone: A New Vehicle for Serious Games and Is Serious Gaming In Apple´s Future - 700 Diggs!, dated early 2007, Apple's last week announcement of iPhone SDK roll-out coupled with the first "above average cellphone games" to go along with it, broadens the perspective of iPhone as a Serious Game platform.

Continue reading "iPhone SDK: Potential For Serious Games Large Scale Distribution" »

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Continue reading "Make Games with MS Excel" »

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Continue reading "PowerPoint Karaoke" »

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Serious Games: virtual crowds acting like the real ones

Simulated people, or "agents," run from a burning car. The simulation tries to predict how real people would react in such an emergency. Credit: Paul Torrens, Arizona State University.

Continue reading "Serious Games Predict Crowd Behavior In Dense Urban Settings" »

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Midway Games Inc. (NYSE:MWY) today announced results of operations for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2007. The Company also provided guidance for the quarter ending March 31, 2008.

FOURTH QUARTER RESULTS

Net revenues for the 2007 fourth quarter were $77.6 million, compared to the 2006 fourth quarter net revenues of $96.9 million. The 2007 fourth quarter loss applicable to common stock was $29.7 million, or a loss of $0.33 per basic and diluted share, compared with a 2006 fourth quarter loss applicable to common stock of $2.0 million, or a loss of $0.02 per basic and diluted share.

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by: Scott Goodson via MSI blog

The majority of gamers own American-made cars (24% Ford, 18% Chevrolet). However, 79% are planning to buy an import for their next car (41% Toyota, 41% Honda, 25% Nissan and others).

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