Pregaming the Games: a Business of Media Blog

The Traditional Model is Suffering

2009-12-10T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday GamePolitics ran a story covering Fortune's article on videogame takeovers. As Rolf Winkler and Rob Cox of breakingviews.com report, "With their business models under threat and shares in the doldrums, video game publishers like Electronic Arts look ripe for the picking by larger media conglomerates such as Walt Disney."

Contributing to the environment is, of course, the economy. However, the success of social gaming is both a symptom of the current climate and a factor aggravating the wounds of traditional game publishers. EA recently announced that it would be released fewer, but better games. While this scaling back of content is a sign that media conglomerates might be able to move in and make some hefty purchases, I wouldn't say that it's an entirely desperate move. As Winkler and Cox explain:

Publishing video games is like making movies: Invest millions developing titles and pray for blockbusters. As in Hollywood, the trick is to establish successful franchises and regularly ride them to riches. Studios look for the next Harry Potter. Game publishers search for the next Call of Duty.

On the other hand, social gaming requires a lot less investment in individual titles, especially at the start. Here quantity -- generally at the expense of innovation -- is a dominant factor. It isn't surprising that traditional published like EA have to move away from a model like that, and personally, I don't think it's upsetting, either.

It's silly to drop all the time and resources to produce a well-polished but terrible game. You can either be the dexterous indie developer that blows everyone's mind with their quirky innovation, or you can funnel millions into creating a breathtaking, blockbuster experience. There is rarely room for middle ground.

I fully support EA's decision to let the smaller companies do what they do best. Their purchase of Playfish shows that they're willing to get into the field of social gaming, without making the mistake of pitting their big titles against the likes of stuff you play for 5 minutes a day on Facebook.

Playfish: "Technology Pioneer" for 2010

2009-12-03T23:39:00.000-08:00

TechCrunch ran a story a couple days ago reporting the announce of the World Economic Forum's choices for technology companies to keep an eye on. Among 25 others, social gaming powerhouse Playfish was named among them.

To be selected, a company must be "involved in the development of a life-changing technology innovation and have the potential for long-term impact on business and society." The companies must also "demonstrate visionary leadership and show all the signs of a long-standing and sustainable market leader."

CrunchBase also has an excellent page of Playfish's recent financial news and stats as a company.

Presentation Topic: Social Gaming

2009-12-03T14:32:00.000-08:00

I've been deliberating for a couple weeks now, and a few days ago I decided that for the final project for Business of Media, I'd like to dig into the quickly growing world of Social Gaming.

I've taken a quick look at social games in the past, as well as EA's purchase of Playfish.However, as with many emerging trends in the realm of online social activity, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Social games are doing things that traditional games have never be able to accomplish. For example, Nintendo recently bragged about how many female players it has, compared to other consoles like the Xbox or PS3.

This is all well and good, but when you look at social games, women and girls aren't just a small pink chunk on a pie chart: they dominate the field. This is a by-product of the fact that they are spending more time with social media, in general.

And while bridging the gender gap alone would is an impressive feat in the gaming industry (women have always been big gamers in the casual sphere, but rarely have they been so readily talked about), it is just one reason why social gaming is so attractive right now.

Teaser Trailers: Not Just for Movies

2009-11-20T14:30:00.000-08:00

I've been talking a lot about animations and videos done to promote videogames recently, and today Kotaku covered a new "teaser" out for an unknown, upcoming FPS.

The name of the game and gameplay will premiere during the VGAs on December 12 at 8pmET/PT on Spike. A Halo: Reach trailer is also scheduled for the broadcast.

Teasers are an excellent way to build viral buzz, if done well. Cloverfield is a great example of this for the movie industry. Mystery can become allure very quickly, and 2K Games (the folks behind BioShock, Civ IV, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and many other blockbuster titles) is hardly a small-time player.

And when you've got that kind of industry clout, why not exercise it in a less conventional way?

Beyond the Game Trailer: Assassin's Creed II

2009-11-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

Assassin's Creed II, which launched this week along with L4D2 put out an interesting bit of content to promote their new game. Most fans are used to seeing cinematic trailers which span 3 to 5 minutes and try to capture you interest much like a movie trailer would. However, Ubisoft took the traditional cinematic a step further when they released a 30 minute short film to tell the story of what happened between the final scene of Assassin's Creed -- a total cliffhanger that frustrated many players (I, on the other hand, kind of liked it) -- and where Assassin's Creed II picks up.

(Go here to watch the full version.)

The idea that more companies might take this route in the future should make any gamer happy: more content is almost always better than less, especially when it comes from big name players. As for advertising, it's hard to say if anyone not already inclined to play the game would sit through a 30 minute movie for it. On the other hand, it's a brilliant way to remind those people who enjoyed the first game to get out there and purchase the sequel!

Special Editions: The Appeal to Eager Fans

2009-11-19T18:14:00.000-08:00

Set to launch early next year, the BioShock 2 Special Edition packaged was announced today. Special Editions for videogames are not unpopular when it comes to franchises which have either done well in the past, or have a lot of positive buzz surrounding them. For a decent chunk of change on top of the regular price tag, Special Editions are a really positive way to give eager fans more of the merchandise they want.

The BioShock 2 Special Edition, for instance, supplies the player with tons of concept art, a soundtrack (in both CD and vinyl), and some posters modeled after the ones that hang on the desolate walls of Rapture: the in-game, underwater city. Special and Collector's Editions of games aren't new -- they date back to the Dreamcast and N64 era -- but they have become more fleshed out over the years. Now you can expect to find content ranging from the standard, mucho-glossy concept art book, to figurines and toys.

Wikipedia has a great list of all games which have had Collector's/Special Editions, along with what goodies they were packaged with.

The BioShock: Limited Edition Package

Facebook and Twitter on LIVE: More Ads to Come?

2009-11-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

The integration of Twitter and Facebook onto Xbox LIVE was announced this summer at E3 some months ago, the launch came out today.While the Xbox LIVE experience is already one marked by advertisements, not only for games but also partner companies like Netflix, it's not a stretch to speculate that this is another channel through which advertising will approach the gaming market.

Facebook already hosts targeted ads, and Twitter's announcement several weeks back about the upcoming ads in the future make it hard-pressed for me to imagine that these features would be offered for free, sans-ads, on such a huge commercial giant like LIVE.

Microsoft and comScore: Tracking In-Game Ad Data

2009-11-12T17:29:00.000-08:00

Not so much a look at advertising itself but at the systems that track the effectiveness of advertising, Mike Sheilds of Adweek posted earlier today that "Microsoft’s gaming subsidiary Massive Inc. has partnered with Web measurement firm comScore in an effort to bring more standardization to the still-evolving in-game advertising industry."

ComScore offers services much like those sold by Nielsen of television's Nielsen ratings. In-game advertising is still a nascent field, but is rapidly growing as companies become more aware of the growing market that lies in the gaming industry. Even Barack Obama put a campaign ad in a videogame in last year during his run for the presidency (the game, if anyone is curious, was a racing genre title: Burnout Paradise.)

As a small aside, racing games are great venues for in-game ads: they come out frequently enough that there isn't as much concern about being irrelevant in 5 years, and a billboard ad in a racing game is hardly out of place. It doesn't break the 4th wall in the way that putting an Obama ad would utterly murder the suspension of disbelief, in, say, my recent high-fantasy game favorite, Dragon Age: Origins. But, back to the Adweek piece.

As part of the arrangement between the two companies, Massive will now be able to provide advertisers with tangible data on the direct impact of their in-game ad campaigns. Specifically, Massive and comScore have jointly developed a research methodology that will help brands track visits to their Web sites or search queries that result from in-game ad campaigns- -- by matching Massive’s ad-serving data with information from comScore’s existing Internet audience panel.

Interestingly, Nielsen Online, a competitor to comScore, is also trying to get into the market of collecting and distributing information regarding the results of in-game ads.

EA Drops $300 Million to Pick up Social Gaming

2009-11-11T16:54:00.000-08:00

(Image courtesy of Kotaku.com)

I posted some time ago about the rampant success of social games like Farmville, and this is just a quick update in that realm. Techcrunch, Mashable, Kotaku, and PaidContent each ran a story yesterday on EA Interactives's purchase of Playfish for $275 million up front and $25 in "equity retention arrangements."

On the advertisement front, Playfish games clearly have much of the same appeal as successful games like Farmville: they are sugary sweet, colorful, and utterly playful. Like feel-good movies and mass-market paperbacks, this type of advertising easily draws in people where more typical gaming markets may not reach. Games on social networks, along with innovative practices by traditional gaming companies like Nintendo, are expanding the gaming market from being very genre-specific, to being something that everyone can feel good about enjoying.

A Happy Ending: Modern Warfare 2 Launch

2009-11-10T19:11:00.000-08:00

After a slew of Modern Warfare 2 posts, I promise this will be the last. The game officially launched today, though many fans were able to pick up early copies yesterday as well. Unlike the last posts, which have largely dealt with Infinity Ward's missteps, the story of the game took a much more pleasant turn for its release date.

Kotaku published yesterday that Activision "plans to unveil a $1 million backed non-profit corporation designed to help soldiers transition to civilian careers."

After such a string of seemingly odd choices and strained controversies, the Call of Duty franchise appears to want to use its fame and success to help promote a social interest cause. As many players of Modern Warfare have served in the military, the gesture is not likely to fall on deaf ears.

Modern Warfare 2 Sales Unhindered by Controversies

2009-11-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

Both GameSpot and GamePolitics reported yesterday that despite the recent controversies surrounding Modern Warfare 2, which is launching next Tuesday, game sales are projected to be huge.

Even USA Today picked up on the story:

"By all indicators, we anticipate Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be the biggest entertainment launch of all time," says Tony Bartel, executive vice president for merchandising and marketing at GameStop. "As of today, the number of pre-order reservations we've taken for the game is the highest for any title we've ever sold in our 6,200 store network."

James Brightman wrote for Industry Gamers, saying:

Ever since E3 pundits have been predicting huge sales for Activision's upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which many believe will be the top selling title of this holiday season and possibly all of 2009. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter, as part of his Activision earnings preview, put in his own two cents.

"We expect global sales to exceed $500 million in the first week following launch, and think that the company can easily sell 10 million units in Q4," he stated.

I think that Infinity Ward's ability to shrug off all the contention surrounding Modern Warfare 2 -- from the removal of Dedicated Servers, to the content leak, to the homophobic advertisement -- essentially comes down to a point I made in a few of my earlier blog posts: gameplay is the best advertising you can get in this industry. Publishers and franchises are to videogames what authors are to novels, and directors to movies, but even moreso.

Dropping $59.99 + tax on a game requires a much greater deal of trust in the product (and its creators) than buying a DVD or novel, or even purchasing a movie ticket. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has become a staple of the online FPS multiplayer experience. Many gamers, casual and hardcore alike, are likely to overlook a transgression or three in order to recreate or enhance the entire they had playing the original title.

More Modern Warfare 2 Controversy

2009-11-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

As Destructoid reported on Halloween day, Infinity Ward (publishers of the upcoming sequel to Modern Warfare) recently pulled an ad for Modern Warfare 2 that had been uploaded to Youtube. The reason? It was perceived as homophobic, and the outcry against it was massive.

The ad made a mock "public service announcement" calling players who randomly toss grenades in online multiplayer "pussies." Furthermore, the fake institution behind the fake PSA was "Fight Against Grenade Spam." The acronym is pretty easy to gather.

The original video has been taken down, so I can't really pass judgement on whether or not it was tongue-in-cheek enough to be poking fun at the standard player-base of Modern Warfare -- who tend to be reknowned for the sexism, homophobia, and racism they spew across Xbox Live -- or if it was an ad that was meant to touch base and connect with these players.

That said, I find myself siding with the folks who were pissed off. As someone who has played quite a bit of online Call of Duty multiplayer on Xbox, there have been times where I've felt so disgusted by other players' behavior -- or times when I was personally harassed, sexually and non-sexually -- that I've just had to turn off my console. I've experienced that attitude on this game more than I have on any other game, and I've played it far less than other online games like L4D or World of Warcraft.

It's a shame because I do like playing multiplayer, but I'm wary of ever bothering to use my headset. Communication is a vital part of the Live experience, however, you become a target for a lot of hatred both vicious and casual (which is even worse), when people can tell (or believe they can tell) that you aren't a white, heterosexual male.

It's surprising that Infinity Ward would release such an ad so very soon after the leak of their controversial gameplay in which the player briefly controls a terrorist. The "boys will be boys" mentality that reigns supreme on Modern Warfare is not something that Infinity Ward should be looking to promote in their new game. Giving a wink and a nod to homophobia to a crowd that is known for going out of their way to make the game less fun for anyone "non-standard" just smacks of terrible policy.

//Edit: Here is a link to the commercial. It is being hosted by a few Youtube users who grabbed a copy before Infinity Ward disabled the official one.

No Such Thing as Bad Publicity? A Look at a Mordern Warfare 2 Leak

2009-10-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

I couple posts back I talked about the L4D2 cinematic trailer that was "leaked" onto the Internet. I use quotation marks because it's pretty well known that -- especially among online sources -- it's popular to say that some video was leaked in order to make it some more risque and get people to click. The truth is that many times the content was purposefully fed to certain sites before others.

In the case of the L4D2 trailer, the "leak" of the final cut just a few days before the release of the pre-order demo is fairly suspect. After all, it was all polished up and already packaged into the demo by that point, and "leaking" the trailer was probably a way of helping to drive pre-orders, since a early demo release was made available to everyone who pre-ordered the game.

On the other hand, G4TV posted a story yesterday about what I would venture to say is a more legitimate "leak." This leak showed game footage from the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 (the newest installment in the Call of Duty franchise) in which the player controls a terrorist. Spoiler warnings abound, so read at your own risk.

In the level (reportedly the beginning of the game), the player is with a group of men who murder innocent civilians in an airport. The level seems to consist primarily of capping innocent people, including the clearly injured who are trying in vain to hobble away as you shoot them in the back. This is where CNN's video ends. Based on other internet reports, after the airport killing spree, the group then exit to the tarmac where they pass a pile of dead bodies, and shoot some cops.

Then, in classic Modern Warfare style, the character you are playing is flat-out murdered in a cutscene.

This is obviously some strong stuff, and it's predictable that folks would take issue with it -- especially people who don't understand gamer culture, or even believe that videogames turn kids into killing machines. The footage itself has been removed, likely due to a DMCA take-down notice, further validating it as a real leak. Leaks like this one can pose particularly troublesome problems.

Successful advertising almost always depends on having some semblance of control over your brand's image. Whether that means directing each and every move, or just getting the ball rolling in the right direction, there is some planning that goes into it. Leaks of such charged and unsettling gameplay take away that control where it may be needed most: it's pretty easy to see how tempting it would be for news sources (especially those unfamiliar with the game industry, or even hostile towards it) to take the footage out of context. I can see it already: "Violent Shoot-em-up Encourages Kids to Become Terrorists and Kill Civilians!"

Aside from not being able to closely manage the effect the controversy may have on their image, Infinity Ward (the publishers of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2) now has to spend time and capital guarding against any further leaks before the game hits shelves on November 10th.

Pre-Launch Character Creation: a Uniquely Game-centered Way of Advertising

2009-10-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

Set to release next week (November 3rd), Dragon Age used a pretty interesting concept as part of their pre-launch advertising. As Brendan Sinclair of GameSpot reported on the 13th, potential players can visit the official website and use the Character Creator feature to physically design Dragon Age: Origins protagonists. These characters can be fully exported to the actual PC retail copy when the game is released.

This is an advertising technique that is distinctly unique to the gaming industry -- it can't really be replicated in book publishing or film production. My guess is that, aside from getting already devoted fans excited, the idea is to help build a sense of attachment to whatever character you make, so much so that you'd be willing to purchase the game to see them "brought to life." On the other hand, it also can express the overall "tone" of a game fairly well using visual cues: the quality of the graphics engine, the style of the fashion, the art direction of the character models, and so forth.

This isn't the first time EA has hyped a game's release by giving players a sneak peek at its character creation tools. The publisher released Spore Creature Creator in advance of Will Wright's Spore, as a free download (with limited features) and as a $5 retail package.

Though Spore might be one of the most over-hyped games in history, it's possible that this tactic of allowing people to see the character creation process assisted in building the raging wall of buzz that surrounded the game pre-release. Though the character creation tool doesn't allow for a taste of gameplay like a demo might, it can be more easily downloaded from something as user-friendly as an official website, and promises a sort of continuation between a prospective customer's online behavior (designing up a quick character), and their gaming behavior.

Sales Follow-Up on World of Goo

2009-10-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last week I posted about the temporary Pay-What-You-Can offer for World of Goo, and on this past Wednesday GamePolitics.com reported some of the numbers that the stunt generated. "The ability for consumers to pay what they wanted to for the title also generated an enormous amount of publicity, further benefiting sales," they reported. Publicity might be harder to measure, but I did touch on the fact that it could boost future game sales and new launches.

For anyone interested in the sheer numbers, however:

The average price paid for the game was $2.03, while almost 17,000 people chose to pay a single cent and another 21,000 plus paid between 2 cents and $1.99. The next largest category was the $5.00 to $5.99 range, with over 7,300 customers. At the other end of the spectrum, 4 people chose to pay $50.00 for the game.

Not necessarily within the scope of this blog, but I thought that it was a nice follow-up.

Kill All Sons'a Bitches: L4D2 M-Rated Cinematic Trailer "Leaked"

2009-10-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

And my God, it is positively delicious looking.

I've mentioned Left4Dead and Left4Dead2 in a few blog posts, and the leak of this trailer is another opportunity to look at some nifty advertising, specifically the pre-launch type.

Like in the film industry, many videogames -- especially those created by successful publishing companies -- release cinematic "trailers" before the actual launch of the title. Trailers for videogames, like those for movies, obviously have the job of trying to sell you on purchasing a product (whether that is a game disc, a movie ticket, or a DVD).

What's trickier about videogame trailers, however, is that generally the content cannot just be ripped from already-shot scenes of the film. This is especially so in the case of "cinematic" trailers, which people believe represent the highest animation quality of which the graphics engine running the game is capable). That, and not only do you have to tell a story -- you have to show off what the gameplay will be like, which is easier said than done. Representing the way it feels to actually play the game through a passive medium, like watching a Youtube movie, is definitely more art than science.

As a devoted fan of the first game, I can only hope that the quality of this trailer indicates the "feel" of the upcoming game. Even if I had no experience, no familiarity at all, with the original game, this trailer would certainly be enough to make me go find out more about the upcoming release.

PS. In case the Youtube clip is taken down, you can also watch the trailer here.

Facebook: Soon to be more Civilized.

2009-10-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Games.com reported that Civilization, one of the pillars of the real-time strategy videogame genre, will be launching a version of its long-running franchise on Facebook in the upcoming year.

As I mentioned to fellow classmate katdiogo in a comment on a recent post about Farmville on Facebook, there are very few games available on Facebook that appeal to me. Though I clearly enjoy playing videogames, as someone with regular access to other gaming platforms, Facebook does not tend to draw me in.

However, the news of Civilization coming to everyone's favorite social-networking site, for me, could be a (no pun intended, honest) game-changer. When I grew up, the bread and butter of my videogame experience was half Doom, half Warcraft and Command and Conquer style RTS (real-time strategy) games -- until I was about 8 years-old and started playing online games.

Civilization is a game which defines the RTS genre for many people. Much like something in Farmville, the game is based on progression (rather than say, Pacman or Tetris -- you are generally building off of where you left from. The idea is to take a group of people (normally sorted by nationality) from their start as simple gatherer-hunters, up to their pinnacle as world-dominating superpowers.

I initially heard about this game via Twitter, when all the gaming sites I follow suddenly went crazy as they broadcasted the news. Then, I had gaming friends who similarly tweeted and retweeted the information. I know I just made the point about buzz driving games on social-networking sites, but this is a prime example of what I meant. Already, without having to do anything other than pump their story into the right channels, many people in the target audience (people who have enjoyed past Civ games and would be likely to try out the Facebook version) have this news on their radar.

It remains to be seen if the game would have any more power to retain a player-base than the usual Facebook game-application fare, but given Civilization's (well-earned, in my opinion) good reputation amongst avid gamers and even an older audience (the first Civilization game was published in 1991), I have high hopes already.

Cover Art: the Last Chance to Grab Players

2009-10-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago Gamespot ran an article referencing NPD research that "40% of gamers impulse buy."

As for what factors played into an impulse purchase, 40 percent said the game's packaging was a "very important" or "extremely important" factor in their decision.

This was higher than the 33% that mentioned the importance of a referral from a friend, the 25% that said the in-store demon was a critical factor, the 21% that liked the recommendations from other shoppers, or 19% that felt like the sales clerk played a big role in what title they picked up. This should be moderately good news for videogame advertisers: it's a lot easier to control the packaging of your product than the buzz which surrounds it, let alone the aptitude of the salesperson behind the counter.

The reason that the cover art is so vital, in my opinion, is that for most games it is a clear indication of "what type" of game it is, and what type of player will enjoy it. Now, judging a game by its cover is bound to result in some more expensive mistakes than judging a book by its cover, but overall there are some pretty integral semiotic codes that go into the construction of cover art.

Though Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare earned great ratings from game reviewers across the board (and the History Channel games, generally, have not), it's clear to see that in both cases art work is likely to catch the eye of gamers who like war games. If you have already played and enjoyed game like Call of Duty 4, you're probably going to be more inclined to buy The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific just from glancing at the cover art. If the game is being sold at a reduced price (which it probably is: Battle for the Pacific is likely available used, and even new, it's old enough that it's not going to have a whopping $59.99 price sticker), you'll be even more persuaded.

The beauty of semiotic coding as advertising in cover art is that the same codes tend to be transferable not just from game to game, but also from movies, novels, comics, etc. To give an example...

A movie poster for a well-known, much-loved franchise: Star Wars. For many fans, this movie is the epitome of the space-faring epic, not only a classic but an definitive work in the genre of science fiction. It is a -- to put it likely -- wildly successful application of the "good versus evil" theme to the world of aliens, spaceships, and intergalactic battles.

Here's the cover of Mass Effect, an incredibly successful science fiction RPG:

I'll let you guess what the game is about.

Gamers on Social Networks... a Whole Goddamn Lot, Too

2009-10-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

I recently touched on the idea of the "give it away free" business model when it comes to video games in a post about World of Goo's temporary offer of "pay what you can." While it's quite rare for traditional videogames (PC or console alike) to adopt this strategy, there is actually quite a large precedent for "play for free" videogames, especially online games.

And I'm not just talking about Text Twist or some dodgy online pool game. I'm talking about games that people play, often without even associating them with videogames. Even the most stereotypically anti-geek, mainstream, Gossip-Girl loving individual might spend hours a day fiddling around with these games.

But enough with the cheesy suspense: I'm talking about Facebook. On Thursday USA Today reported that Farmville, a game which will celebrate it's four month anniversary this October, has 56 million unique players monthly, and something like 20 million unique players daily.

Atul Bagga, a gaming analyst at market researcher Think Equity, expects the $500 million to $600 million social-gaming slice of the online market to at least double, to $1 billion, in 2010.

And where, oh where, does that money come from? After all, downloading the application and running it -- playing the game itself -- is free. The answer comes from two main streams of revenue. The first is micro-transactions. While you aren't paying a monthly subscription fee (like you would pay to play World of Warcraft, or what you pay to access Xbox Live's full services), you might, from time to time, spend a dollar here or there (on particular farming tools in Farmville, for example). The games don't necessarily nickle-and-dime you to death, because most of the experience is free. However, all that pocket change certainly adds up.

The other revenue stream comes from advertisers.

Meanwhile, advertisers are gravitating to the popular social-gaming sections of social networks to reach tens of millions of consumers.

"It's attractive real estate," says Hi5's Trigg. Hewlett-Packard, Verizon and Netflix are among major brand names running banner ads on MySpace's gaming areas.

It's unclear what, if any, portion of this goes directly to the publishers of the specified applications like Farmville (rather than just Facebook itself). However, it is more than clear that this industry is experiencing incredible growth with profit margins that could make anyone salivate.

The cleverest part of the advertising, when it comes to games like Farmville, is that it is so damn cheap. After all, the cost it takes to implement an obnoxious "Invite your Friends!!!" template is obscenely inexpensive in comparison to running something like a TV ad. You don't need a well organized campaign that sprawls across every available window. All you need is to prompt your players to invite a handful of other people, who go on to invite a handful more.

The best trick, of course, is to reward the players for doing your advertising for them. Instead of paying an agency hundreds of thousands of bucks, you pay one dedicated player 100 apples or oranges, or whatever the hell the currency is in Farmville, to get one other player on board. Maybe if they invite two friends they get a cow. Ten friends? A barn.

I'm probably showing that I definitely don't play this game to anyone who does, but the point holds true: you are paying people in fake currency to do what you would otherwise have to pay people in cold hard cash to do.

The downside to social gaming, however, is that they are like viruses. They blossom exponentially for a little while, infecting many of the people they come into contact with, dominating a population. But then people get over them (or, I don't know, die -- time to abandon the metaphor). In the terms of social gaming, they get bored. Then they move on. The same system that makes it so easy to join games like Farmville is what makes them easy to leave: they get swallowed up by the 'next big thing.'

To put it in more proper vocabularly: these games thrive on buzz, which is also the core component to their advertisment.

Pop Idol Likes Videogames, Would Be Interested in Production

2009-10-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

I touched a little bit yesterday on my disdain for videogame advertising only seeming to target women when it wants to sell distinctly "feminized" games (fashion, cooking, baby-pet-rearing) rather than even bothering to view them as part of the market for major industry blockbusters. However, as I tried to make clear with that post, the prospect of having more girls and women playing more games, in general, excites me and makes me all warm and fuzzy.

Last Friday, Gamespot noted that pop music idol Beyonce Knowles has expressed an interested in working on a dance-based fitness game for women. Of course the news is entirely speculative, but it is interesting to note. After all, Knowles would already have the powerhouse of her personal brand to drive an advertising campaign should a game with her name on it ever come to fruition. She's an iconic figure of the "strong" yet desirable female role model, for both young girls and older women alike.

"I'd like to get involved in videogames since I really love Wii Fit," the singer was quoted as saying. "I think it would be a great idea to incorporate choreography because for me my workout is way more fun when it involves dancing as opposed to running on a boring treadmill. So I would love to do some kind of fitness game but incorporate dance and performance into it. I think a lot of women would enjoy that."

As the article points out, celebrity-backed games aren't a new concept. That said (and this is open to some, though I doubt much, debate) none of the celebrities mentioned are half so influential as Knowles amongst the possible target audience (women and young girls who enjoy dancing and pop music).

World of Goo: Pay What You Can

2009-10-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

"Pay What You Can," while not exactly a widespread phenomenon (to put it lightly) isn't a completely new concept. Obviously not-for-profit groups have been executing this sort of donation-based system for quite some time: churches are probably the longest running business in the world, and they've been passing around the collection plate for thousands of years.

More recently "Pay What You Can" has come to private, for-profit enterprises. The ease and relatively minimal cost of transferring certain types of goods over the Internet had allowed certain companies and artists to dabble in giving their content away for whatever the customer feels is an appropriate price. Radiohead is probably one of the most well-known examples of this, and the concept seems to apply very readily to music in particular (likely because it's only very slightly less convenient to obtain albums illegally via torrenting clients).

It's a different story to see pay-what-you-will exchanges for videogames. Unlike some free to download or even free to play games, World of Goo isn't based on micro-transactions after you've started playing like most games which follow such a business model.

How exactly does a year-old game releasing its content for as low as $.01 pertain to pre-game advertising? The question becomes: what is 2D Boy (the publisher of World of Goo) playing at here? It could be -- and is likely -- that they've sold all the copies they believe they're going to sell for the going rate of $5-20, and are just trying to eek out the last bit of potential profit by reaching people who might pay $1, but not $5.

While this certainly has to have some benefit, another possibility -- and one that may be more likely, given how notoriously low the averages raked in using "Pay What You Can" systems tend to be -- 2D Boy is now more concerned with building an audience. World of Goo has been a very successful small game for the PC (as well as the Wii, though that version is not part of this promo), and at this point, it may be more important for 2D Boy to increase their brand recognition as a smaller company that releases really solid games, rather than attempting to sell however many more copies at a fixed rate.

If 2D Boy is confident enough that their gameplay will encourage fans to purchase the games they make in the future, the strategy of giving World of Goo away for a penny becomes its own word of mouth advertisement -- without having to spend anything on a hefty campaign, new insights, or even distribution aside from bandwidth costs.

"Girl" Games: Love 'Em, Hate 'Em

2009-10-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal ran an article today titled "Videogame Firms Make a Play for Women." While initially I had my hopes up, the secondary text immediately reminded me why, as a female who loves videogames in general, I can be so jaded about a thing that I enjoy. "Publishers Roll Out Fashion-Theme Games for Girls, Workout and Dance Titles for Older Females," the descriptive second-title reads. Cue the disgruntled harrumph and the cynical eye-roll, please.

"Videogames have long been considered the domain of teenage boys and young men. Though a few publishers have developed computer games for women, the genre wasn't considered significant until the past several years. Nintendo helped fuel the change with its touch-screen DS portable device five years ago and Wii console three years ago, providing easy-to-play games that appealed to a broader audience—including women—and helped spur its sales."

As someone who has been playing videogames since she was old enough to grapple a joystick or smash buttons on the keyboard, I have truly come to despise the way that the female gaming audience has been addressed in the recent years. Before I go further: of course it is better that the gaming industry is address their female market at all, which has by and large been the standard practice for the lifetime of gaming. That aside, it doesn't stop me from wishing they'd do, well, better.

I do appreciate that Nintendo releases a variety of games that introduce many different types of people to videogames as a whole. One of my all time favorite games, and probably the most memorable game of my childhood, was a Nintendo game (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to be exact). Nintendo deserves its well-earned success in the market of making extremely user-friendly games that really get at the heart of the light, carefree, and playful videogame experience.

That said, it doesn't just confuse me, it irritates me when the industry seems surprised that girls and women aren't more interested in their products. While there is something to be said for the fact that women and girls are less socialized to enjoy violent pursuits (little boys are targeted for dinosaur ads, while little girls get Barbie), there is a problem with how the videogame industry treats women in its content, and more relevantly to this blog, its advertising.

For example: it doesn't matter if you're making what is considered one of the best franchises (Soul Caliber) in its genre (fighting) -- if you treat women like objects and have players who go on and on about the physics behind how the stupidly-oversized boobs move, guess what, chicks are probably not gonna touch that with a 40-foot pole (unless they have already been introduced into the market by a different game).

The objectification of women -- or their sheer absence from many mass-marketed titles -- should make for a goddamn no-brainer in my opinion. It might be a myth that you draw more flies with honey than vinegar, but what the videogame industry is doing is the equivalent of soaking their product line-up in Raid.

How this relates back to Nintendo and the WSJ story: why do videogame marketers assume that the only way to get women to play games is to give them things that are "easy-to-play," let alone that have to be about fashion and weight-loss?

Since then, publishers have made a serious effort to develop mass-market games beyond the usual shooter, racing and sports titles. According to financial firm Wedbush Morgan, female game players now account for about 40% of the overall market, compared with the IDC research firm's estimate of less than 12% in 2001. Wedbush calculates that a 5% increase in female players could translate into as much as $1 billion in new revenue every year.

Five percent more chicks, a billion more dollars, and no one has had the bright idea to just try to INCLUDE female gamers into the games that are already being made successfully? I posted recently about the controversy behind Left 4 Dead 2, but regardless of how anyone feels towards the release of the sequel, Left 4 Dead is an amazing example of a game which has appeal among female players.

Among the characters one can choose from is a young woman (named Zoey) who is fully clothed, operates with exactly the same stats as the male characters, and rather than being a strained, sex-kitten personality in the post-apocalypse, she is actually more of a stereotypical "geek" than the rest of the characters. L4D, particularly the PC version, is often considered (within the gamer community) as the best chance one has of playing with female gamers in a FPS.

Now that I've been over the "hate" I have for the idea that the only games girls and women want are cutesy fluffy things, I will reiterate that, despite this, I love that girls and women are actually getting some attention from the industry at all. My mother bought a Wii and a WiiFit within the last couple of years and, though I know I'll never get her to play L4D with me (I've tried), it's nice to see someone enjoying the fun that comes with playing a videogame, regardless of how or why it got into their hands.

And who knows... I can snarl and spit about sugar-coated games being force-fed to the young female gaming audience all I want, but maybe Littlest Pet Shop is actually prepping the next 7-year-old girl for her introduction to dominating the leaderboards of future Call of Duty games.

Spore Hero Ad Scripted by a 12-Year-Old

2009-10-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

Originally reported on Brand Republic last Friday, videogame publishing giant EA Games invited 12-year-old Blake Simon to help them create an upcoming TV ad for the Wii's Spore Hero.

While it would be unfair to critique the work very harshly, the wording doesn't sound very far from a generic game ad. What good is it to bring on a member of your target audience to help out with an ad script, when the creative team is likely just going to force them to follow a formula anyway? To me this seems like a missed opportunity for EA, though I'm sure Blake Simon had a great time being a part of the creation process -- most gamers, old and young alike, are usually only ever stuck on the consumer side.

Of course all this begs the question: what would ads created by target members look like with other games? As clear as it is that Simon was told what points he had to emphasize, videogame advertisers (and ad-designers in general) stand to learn a lot about their products if they ask their player-base how they would advertise the game.

Can DLC Effectively Advertise a Controversial Sequel?

2009-10-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

The popular, many-time award winning game Left 4 Dead launched for Xbox 360 and PC on November 18th, 2008. Since then it has amassed an extensive and devoted fan base across both platforms. Players team up as survivors who must work together if they way to make it through the through zombie-ridden territory to safety -- or, alternatively, group up as "special infected" and do their best to separate and incapacitate the survivors.

Controversy arose amongst the PC gaming community (in particular the Steam Community, as Steam distributes the PC version of L4D) when a sequel was announced at the 2009 E3 Convention. Understanding the controversy -- and why it was so specific to the Steam community rather than the Xbox community -- requires a bit of knowledge about how PC gamers think.

Unlike console gamers who are accustomed to purchasing new games on a fairly regular basis, where DLC (Downloadable Content) is not as integral to the experience, popular computer games are released less frequently. They are often supported by a wide net of casual but talented programmers who add their own modifications to give the game more diversity, and more relevantly, publishers of PC games are much more likely to distribute DLC that further extends a game's shelf-life.

The announcement of a sequel was welcomed by the Xbox community, who was eager for new content. The Steam community, on the other hand, saw it as a distasteful act of greed. Over 25,000 players signed a petition against the release of Left 4 Dead 2.

Valve, L4D's publishing company, responded by attempting to pacify the petitioners with promises of new DLC for the original game, as well as the release of more tools to further strengthen the Mod-making community. True to their word, "Crash Course," a new, two-level campaign for L4D was announced this summer and went live a couple weeks ago for both platforms.

Interestingly enough, the new content was free for all players running Steam -- but cost $7 for Xbox 360 users (who already pay at least $10 more for the original game copy than the less expensive PC version).

The question now becomes: will "Crash Course" pull its weight? It seems like a smart move. Ideally it will 1) alleviate some of the concerns of the Steam community by following a business model with which they are more familiar, 2) generate excitement for the upcoming sequel, and 3) build Valve's brand reputation as a fair and customer-focused game publisher. In the gaming industry the very best advertising is structured around creating a loyal fanbase.

Successful franchises are those that deliver quality in each of their sequels: big hit series like Grand Theft Auto, Legend of Zelda, Halo, Call of Duty, and so on are all clear examples of this phenomenon. Quality DLC such as "Crash Course" for L4D may well kick up the buzz for the sequel.

Blizzard's Diablo III Splash Page Mystery

2009-09-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

In the world of videogames, Blizzard Entertainment (a subsidiary of Activision) is a -- to put it lightly -- a Big Deal. The rake from their overwhelmingly popular World of Warcraft is enough to put the GDP of some small countries to shame. Even before the launch of their now-behemoth MMORPG, Blizzard made a solid name for itself by releasing well-loved, lore-heavy games in series like Warcraft, Diablo, and the soon to be sequel-ed Starcraft.

The following that Blizzard Entertainment commands is perhaps surprising not just in size, but also in loyalty. Fans of Blizzard's games are dutiful in returning each time a new game in a series is released. Part of this is simply because of the superior gameplay -- by reducing the amount of games that they release, Blizzard has astounding quality control over a relatively small (for their monetary clout) library of games. Part of it, however, also has to do with the fact that Blizzard Entertainment is keenly aware of its target demographic (computer gamers who love science fiction and fantasy) and knows how to rile them into a frenzy for each new launch.

Late June of last year, a "splash page" depicting an iced over area suddenly went up on the majority of Blizzard's game sites, including the popular World of Warcraft home page. This splash page offered no explanation, only the Blizzard logo beneath it.

Day One:

The buzz this simple change created was instantaneous. Forums dedicated to gaming erupted in discussion about what the new splash was for. Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for World of Warcraft, was set to release in November of that year and had already been announced. Many people believed that the splash was dedicated to the upcoming game, as WotLK features one of -- if not the -- most notorious villains of the Warcraft universe, and has a strong focus on the freezing tundra of Northrend, where much of the expansion's new content is located.

A few, however, were skeptical. The artwork for much of WotLK had already been available, and the cloak of secrecy surrounding the cryptic splash page suggested a different announcement. The next day, another slightly altered, splash page emerged to take the first one's place.

Day Two:

It became clear that Blizzard was certainly building the tension among its fan base, and the certainty that this was just another ad for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion began to waver. Blogs began reporting on the teaser "splash" pages, further circulating the mystery and putting the rumor mill to work.

With something akin to the fervor shown by LOST fans, people were already analyzing every little bit of the image. For the next week, Blizzard had a captive audience of people who were already fans of their games, as well as much of the gaming industry.

Day Three:

Day Four:

Day Five:

By Day 5, through a large amount of collective work and some very careful scanning for details, many individuals following the splash page evolution had come to the conclusion that Blizzard was gearing up to announce the third installation in their popular series Diablo. Though difficult to see in these images, people went to lengths to analyze even the runes carved into the ice shards and compare them to both Diablo runes and those found in WotLK.

Day Six:

In just six days an Blizzard Entertainment was able to generate a tremendous amount of buzz in the online gaming community for minimal costs: they ran the splashes over the home pages of their own games and content, where it was picked up by excited bloggers across the world. By this point the general consensus was that an announcement of Diablo III was imminent, but fans were eagerly awaiting the final day in the progression so that they could be sure that they had solved the mystery -- and that a new game in a well-loved series was really in the works.

Day Seven: Diablo III Announced

"And the heavens shall tremble."

Aside from the brilliance of getting a lot of bang for so very little buck, Blizzard actively engaged their fanbase in encouraging them to put together the pieces of the splash-page-puzzle.

The real magic, and sly cunning, goes even further beyond the terrific job of implementing a sort of "viral" ad strategy for the prelaunch of Diablo III. Not only did Blizzard advertise and build buzz for Diablo III itself, but the speculation that the splash pages might be for Wrath of the Lich King also increased buzz for that upcoming game.

This week-long set of teaser pages did double duty in increasing word of mouth (or word of blog) for two videogame launches. And THAT takes finesse.

The First Post, and the First NES Commercial

2009-09-24T14:56:00.001-07:00

Pregaming the Games is a blog (and pretty awful pun) based around following the videogame industry's pre-launch efforts to increase the visibility and sales of upcoming games. This includes a focus on game trailers, commercials, print ads, and viral marketing leading up to a game launch, as well as game demos.

Though an argument can certainly be made for the comparative, dollar-per-hour-of-entertainment value of a videogame over a film, the fact is that videogames are a relatively (in the field of home entertainment) expensive commodity. Despite the cost of cutting-edge consoles as well as the hefty price tag on many individual games, the gaming industry is thriving even in a depressed economic climate. Advertising and branding are increasingly important in establishing a game's value, second perhaps only to the gameplay itself.

As the pre-launch gaming scene can be manipulated by word of mouth, lives on buzz, and influences the success of a game's "opening weekend," this arena provides fertile ground for analyzing the attempts of game publishers to establish a connection with their potential audience.

On that note, the "First Ever NES Commercial," while obviously dated, signals that for almost as long as videogames have been widely available, they have also been commercially sold as fantastical devices that enable benign escapism.