Business & Games: The Blog

by: Reinout te Brake

Lipstick effect is defined as follows: “During a recession, the tendency for consumers to purchase small, comforting items such as lipstick rather than large luxury items".

Continue reading "Lipstick and Videogames " »

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by: Rick van der Wal

The Postbank (Dutch ING bank) in Habbo Hotel and eBay in the console race game GRID. It’s nothing new to see brands make an appearance in games to reach out to various demographics.

Continue reading "The Facts & Figures of Brands & Games" »

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by: Rick van der Wal

Pelican Crossing announced their basic version of the web-based virtual world development platform Blink3D is now available for free as of yesterday.

Continue reading "Create Your 3D Virtual World for Free" »

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Via: Washington Post - Not the Usual Game Application

By Mike Musgrove

Microsoft is encouraging use of XNA Game Studio with student developers via the Game Development track in its annual Imagine Cup technology competition, that is wrapping up in Paris next month.

Continue reading "Environmentally Themed Serious Games via Xbox Live" »

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by: Reinout te Brake

For millions of East Asians, online gaming is not so much a hobby as a way of life. “Massively multiplayer” online games such as “Legend of Mir 3” and “MapleStory” have legions of devoted fans who spend an alarming proportion of their waking hours sitting in front of their PCs, at home or in internet cafés, doing battle with elves, wizards and mythological beasts. Some players take their parallel gaming lives very seriously: one man murdered a friend in a dispute over a stolen virtual sword.

Continue reading "A New Business Model: Give away the Game and Charge Avid Players for Extras" »

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by: Reinout te Brake

During a session held at the Paris Game Developers Conference, Electronic Arts VP of international development services Jaime Gine highlighted the crucial importance of localization in maintaining robust worldwide sales.

Continue reading "Paris GDC: All Game Development Is Local(ized) " »

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A few years ago, a couple of virtually anonymous Turkish developers founded TaleWorlds, a game development company that created one of the most innovative indie games of the last few years. The game is called Mount&Blade and if you want to read a really good game review of it, there's one here. The game is, like I said, quite excellent but there's another thing that caught my attention about it...

Continue reading "Business Models: TaleWorld's Beta Approach" »

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by: Eliane Alhadeff

TODAY PRESS RELEASE

FORTERRA SYSTEMS AND CLEVER ZEBRA PARTNER FOR vBUSINESS EXPO AND VIRTUAL WORLDS EVENTS

Continue reading "Serious Games and Energy Costs Leverage Virtual World Events" »

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by: Eliane Alhadeff

UPCOMING: Visual Web Convention 9–10th July London

The leading European event devoted to discussing the business opportunity and monetization model for Virtual Worlds, Serious Games, Social Networks, Casual Games, and Web 2.0

Continue reading "Visual Web Convention: Leading B2B Conversation On NextGen Web" »

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by: Reinout te Brake

Europe is the world's largest potential market for the videogame industry, but it's also the least mature according to Forbes.com.

Continue reading "Forbes: Europe Is Least Mature Videogame Market " »

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by: Reinout te Brake

Billboards, TV ads and other campaigns seemingly bombard consumers throughout the year, calling out bad habits and suggesting various methods by which to quit.

Continue reading "A Recent Survey of RealGames Suggests that Casual Games Are Positively Affecting Consumer Habits and Lifestyle Choices" »

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by: Reinout te Brake

Found a very nice article, you can find it here too. Social media is one of the many results of ability to easily connect with others given by the Internet. Social networks are also an Internet driven evolution (you can see the charts regarding top 10 US networks and blogs at MarketingCharts).

Continue reading "Online Games + Social = Creating a Vibrant Environment to Invite People to Stay " »

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by: Dick Stroud

AARP recently re-launched its web site. Part of the refresh is a new gaming area (sorry I should have said portal) provided by Arkadium.

Continue reading " AARP Launches New Games Web Portal" »

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So word came on the wire about an upcoming convention in the UK, on some themes that will probably interest you. Good speakers too. Details after the jump.

Continue reading "Events: Visual Web Convention" »

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The Sims Carnival, a games portal based on the succesful Sims franchise now entered open beta. The portal provides authorship tools for casual web games, tools which I have yet to check. The website claims the tools are rather simple to use and that is probably accurate enough, considering the number of games they seem to have just going out of closed beta. The press release also boasts a rather impressive games creation rate, with "nearly 1 in of 4 visitors having created and published games".

Continue reading "The Sims Carnival Now in Open Beta" »

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Microsoft and the promise of Serious Games

Six of these Surface tables are now installed at the iBar ultra-lounge located at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. It enables bar customers to order drinks, watch YouTube videos, play touch-screen games and even flirt with each other.

The Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program is designed to help high potential software startups around the globe get access, guidance and support to accelerate their success on the Microsoft platform.

Continue reading "Microsoft Startup Zone: The Promise Of Serious Games" »

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Hello, this is Alex again with some links that caught my attention over the last week.

First off, Nonoba released an API for developing online multiplayer Flash games last week. The way it works is  you use the API to make your multiplayer game, then you upload it on Nonoba's own servers. Check it out here.

After the jump, an indie game with a cool, meta idea going on for it.

Continue reading "Links for 16-06-2008" »

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by: Reinout te Brake

Pearl Research released a comprehensive lifestyle study (paid) focused on Chinese consumers ages 16 to 30.

Continue reading "Chinese Consumers; What Are They up to! " »

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Continue reading "The Necessity of Purpose" »

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Via: Electric Owl Studios – Intuitive Applications for Kids that Inspire Creativity and Exploration
I had already dedicated a couple of posts to Electric Owl Studios’ K.I.C.K. (Kid's Interactive Creation Kiosk), when I first met Fred Gallart - President/CEO, after his talk at Games For Health 2008, in May.

Continue reading "Electric Owl Studios: Serious Games Building A Child-Friendly World" »

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by: Reinout te Brake

Kongregate is a free casual gaming portal which offers flash-based games directly to consumers. The company is a new entrant in an increasingly competitive market.

Continue reading "Kongregate the Future or Not!? " »

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Serious Games enhancing ultra deep water drilling

TPN - Simulations On The Screen & In The Bay Waters

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's national oil & gas company, leased about 80 percent of the world's deepest-drilling offshore rigs to explore prospects including the Western Hemisphere's biggest discovery in decades.

Continue reading "Serious Games Support World's Deepest-Drilling Oil Rigs" »

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Always an interesting resource on the gaming industry, Gamasutra now ran a piece on the Activision-Vivendi merger. The article goes over the ups and downs of the whole thing, how it will possibly go from here and what it will mean from a market point of view. Highly recommended read.

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by: Reinout te Brake

Continue reading "Time Warner Goes Serious and Invests in Online Video Games" »

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by: Reinout te Brake

Strategy Analytics today released its forecast of virtual world adoption, which shows that over the next ten years some 22 percent of global broadband users will have registered for one or more virtual worlds resulting in a market approaching one billion registrants and an eight billion dollar services opportunity.

Continue reading "Virtual Worlds Projected to Mushroom to Nearly One Billion Users" »

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IGA Worldwide (IGA) [announced a two-year agreement with Electronic Arts Inc.  to become the media company’s exclusive global, dynamic in-game advertising partner for titles on Sony Computer Entertainment’s PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system.

For starters, IGA will be serving games in EA's sports and racing games (Madden, NHL, Need for Speed, Burnout). IGA CEO Justin Townsend stated that "It’s exciting that the PS3 has opened up and marketers will now have access to the platform, as this represents a tremendous opportunity for brands targeting a valuable and hard-to-reach audience, plus it sends a clear message that dynamic in-game advertising has arrived as a compelling medium for marketers.”"

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by: Reinout te Brake

Disney has consolidated its digital properties by merging Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) and video game unit Disney Interactive Studios (DIS), reports PaidContent.

Continue reading "Disney Merges Online and Games Units " »

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by: Reinout te Brake

Sony Computer Entertainment says it will allow third-party companies to bring dynamic, in-game advertisements to its PlayStation 3 game console.

Continue reading "Sony Opens PlayStation 3 to Third-party Advertising " »

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via GameDaily

A new Strategy Analytics report states that, over the next 10 years, the number of broadband users registered on one or more virtual worlds will reach 22%. This is highly optimistical I should say, especially considering we're talking non-gaming virtual worlds here (think: Second Life, not World of Warcraft).

Continue reading "Forecasts: Virtual Worlds Growth" »

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        Sony Online Entertainment recently launched the Living Legacy initiative, aimed at former Everquest/Everquest II players who are hereby invited to return to the games, assuming they left on good terms. This is a pretty common strategy in the MMO world and it also comes with some treats for the nostalgic, returning player. In this case, the treats include two months of free play, free expansion packs and in-game items. With EQ's tenth anniversary just around the corner, SOE plans to support this initiative with online and print advertising campaigns. But is it all worth it?

Continue reading "SOE's Living Legacy Program - Is It Worth the Effort?" »

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