Wonderland

NBC and IGA team up

NBC Universal's digital sales team has struck a deal with IGA, adding videogames to the portfolio of places where ads handled by NBC Universal can be delivered to eyeballs.

“We are focused on creating multi-platform solutions for our marketing clients, ensuring they achieve their campaign goals and connect with engaged consumers wherever they are spending their time,” said Nick Johnson, Vice President, NBC Universal Digital Media Advertising Sales.

“The virtual world and gaming space is one of the fastest growing mediums around. Working with IGA, the global independent leader in in-game advertising solutions, we will now, in addition to TV, web and Mobile, be able to offer marketers a whole new opportunity to reach a highly engaged and ever-growing audience.”

First of many, I'm sure. Once this whole network is in place (of ad sales teams who deal with the likes of IGA and Massive et al), and once the ratecards are sorted out, and once a significant number of games can carry the IGA/Massive/et al middleware that delivers the ads, we're going to see a staggering quantity of money changing hands.

I think a chunk of it might come from television advertising budgets. Mm.

DUH: Men play casual games too

This made me chuckle.

There is a tendency in any biz to take a figure like.. say.. 60%, and to turn that into 'THE MAJORITY', which usually translates in the recipient's head as say.. 99%. We see this time and time again: 40-something% (depending on who you listen to) of all gamers or so are female, so therefore "the majority of gamers are male". Ergo, games are a male thing. Big hairy male thing.

Except .. only barely, so barely that in fact it shouldn't really matter any more, except in instances where you're trying to target the hardcore of either sex. Course, it also depends on how you define gamer. And averages (averages are so boring); pick a target demographic and the picture is often quite surprising.

So, casual games. "MAINLY OLDER WOMEN", everyone yells. Because pogo.com has/had a 57% female playerbase at one point? And if you actually rummage, turns out teens are huge consumers of casual games. Of both sexes. So are older blokes. So are people in their 20s with a bit of time to kill. Or senior citizens.

Anyway. There you have it. Men like to play casual games, they (that big, hairy, amorphous mass) just don't like to admit it. Awww.

Keita Takahashi's GameCity presentation

Keita's GameCity presentation pretty much redefined "weird and wonderful". I loved it.

He began by apologising for having agreed to do a keynote, because he's shy and doesn't do well in public, and he followed by putting on gentle sounds of water and birds tweeting, "to calm us". Then, using a combination of Edgies and Desktastic (this is why macs pwn windows/powerpoint for presentations), he took us through a number of stories: how his favourite Havaiana flipflops broke at the thong, which is a bad omen. "Maybe my plane will crash".

...how a house-elf had taken over his computer.

...how far his mansion in Tokyo (his apartment building) was from the Broadway Media Centre in Nottingham.

...how he'd played the multiplayer networked game called "collecting the Miffy stickers from food products to win a bowl and cup set" (the "End Boss").

...how no-one likes trucks because they are loud and smelly, but maybe people would like them if they were cuter? Although he thinks not.

 

...how his downstairs neighbours were loud and annoying, so he had planted some plants which he hoped would grow down to their balcony and cut out their light, which might start a confrontation. This was my favourite one. The hilarious gentleness of the supposedly aggressive move.

And then the Nobi-Nobi Boy. This might translate to Freely Boy, but also to Free and Easy Boy or maybe even Postponed Boy.   I'm looking forward to seeing what actually comes out on the packaging; I suspect they might even stick with Nobi-Nobi Boy in US/EU, in the end.

Nobi-Nobi Boy is in development, so there were no game objectives, and no obvious levelling up mechanics. "Do you need objectives?", asked Keita of the audience. The audience shuffled a "We don't know! Maybe?" sort of noise. Keita laughed and looked nervous - or pretended to. There's a lot of Nobi-Nobi Boy still under wraps, "confidential", so I bet we haven't seen the half of it, and while he may make out that he's just playing, and isn't sure where the game is going, I have a feeling he does really.

 

He's a very playful man.

(All photos taken from gruntzooki's Flickrstream)

Off to GameCity

Nottingham-bound today.. got a Star Wars panel this afternoon, and possibly presenting Keita Takahashi tomorrow, which I'm very happy about. Now, where's my This Is How I Roll tee...

BBFC: bans gory Manhunt game but not equally gory Eastern Promises movie?

I'm firmly in the freedom-to-choose camp when it comes to censoring media, but I also believe that both parents and kids may often have no idea what they're buying when they buy a videogame. Not their fault, either. I'd guess that most 14-year-olds have played Grand Theft Auto (an 18-rated game, designed for adults - and rating on games isn't mandatory): are they doing so as informed consumers?

Can they be informed consumers, if the ratings (PEGI, ESRB, BBFC) are confusing, if even present at all?

Such is the core of the Byron Review, going on in the UK at the moment. There's the slightly-frothymouthed Keith Vaz banging on about "these violent games".. and yet, at the same time, the BBFC has just happily cleared (with an 18 rating) a film that apparently includes throatslitting (so does Manhunt) and child prostitution (um..). 

Awkward moment for the BBFC there! Shot itself in the foot there, I think, and not with a lightgun, either. Ouch.

A few thoughts on Virtual Worlds Forum

There seem to be four key areas, which could break out into tracks in the future, if this conference is likely to grow (and as it Sold Out, I'm presuming it will). Not that this would necessarily be the best way to categorise virtual environments, but there certainly feels to be four camps here right now:

• 2 & 2.5D environments, which are slightly "minoritised" here, even though they often have giant userbases, dwarfing all traditional virtual worlds and most MMOs (except WoW). Habbo and Club Penguin are the obvious ones, but it would stretch to CyWorld, WeeWorld, Papermint, and the like, the horrible BarbieGirls.com, etc. Plenty of space in this field, I think. Newcomers demoing here include Moshi Monsters from MindCandy, and Taatu.com.

• Virtual Worlds ... meaning the 3D set: Second Life, HiPiHi, Kaneva, There.com and Project Entropia. Some up-and-coming entrants, but pretty much everyone thinks of these types of space - lanky, almost-real humanoid avatar, 3D almost-real VR environment - when we say "virtual worlds", where in fact, virtual worlds should be an all-encompassing term for .. anything involving an avatar?

• Using 3D virtual world technology for internal corporate use. Sun, IBM, BP, Google, and others are poking around in this space; for consumer-facing types though, this may be a strand of marginal interest (and perhaps vice versa!). Certainly my 2D-focussed sofa-mate here was snoring through the recent corporate use panel.

• MMOs. The pure game environments, only lightly represented here by the odd panellist - a fella from NCSoft here, Corey from Multiverse.net there. Of course, Raph was probably going to be the star in the tiara here, but he couldn't make it because California is on fire.

Generally, there seems to be agreement that this entire area is going to continue to grow (at different rates for each sector, though); there's growth despite some negative responses recently, that the Second Life backlash doesn't really matter, if a lot of the marketers retreat from SL, then "all the better".

Kids seem to be quite so into these environments partially because they're kept indoors these days, and partially because these spaces are full of their friends, so they get to socialise anyway (more sociable than watching telly, isn't it?): just avatar-to-avatar rather than face-to-face. This has implications over the long term, of course. Spaces for kids entirely designed around consumerism leaves a sour taste in many people's mouth: and there's no obvious answer to this: do we just hope that some spaces will be more thoughtful, or what? Public Service can step in, but not with budgets of the multi-millions. Tricky.

On the other end of the scale, I'm rather fascinated by both Second Life and There.com remarking that the 50+ audience is their most reliable and highest-use audience. Makes you think about virtual spaces for the retired market, who find themselves suddenly with plenty of time, maybe plenty of money, and possibly in many cases, some slightly limited mobility. Old bones, you know: the laptop and the sofa is a nice place to be. 1950s-themed virtual space, anyone?

Lastly, it's the most glamorous conference environment I've been in for a while: in what was Bagley's in lovely old Kings Cross. Yes, a nightclub, complete with chandeliers, padded walls, dancefloor lights and velour. The finger food is top quality; there are exotic fruit juices on offer, and lots of little goodies kicking about. More like this would be good: the usual faceless hotel ballrooms are so dreary, and it's very conducive to meeting people. Nicely organised.

Thinkgeek's good day

The famous meh tee ...

... for littlies:

.. but this is the hyperventilation-inducing kicker - KAY NINE, remote controlled! Gasp!

Must. Have.

Lord Putt on VWs

I missed Lord Puttnam's keynote at VWF yesterday, but I know his general theme, and here it is again: games and virtual environments are great, but can we please make them better?

In his speech Lord Puttnam voiced fears about the many game worlds that have sprung up which tie access to the virtual world to the purchase of a toy.

Webkinz, Funkeys, BarbieGirls, TyGirlz and many others are all virtual worlds created and run by toy makers.

"Are we absolutely sure that this is the very best we can offer young people?" he asked. "Do we really want them to think of themselves as not much more than consumers?"

He said: "Might we not prefer to build worlds that encourage those same values and skills we wish them to exercise in the real world?"

I'm with him on this one. Kids these days are so bombarded with Purchase! Purchase! Purchase! messages that we have to ask: what does it mean for their long-term happiness?

Live music in Lord of The Rings Online

Aghghghg FINALLY! Lord of the Rings Online offers up performable music using in-world instruments (oh maybe other folks have done this, but it's the first I've seen in a structured-narrative world: SWG, Tolkein, WoW, etc).

Says Wagner James:

These weren’t just videos of players going on the quests designed by Turbine Inc., LOTRO’s developer.  Instead, these were gamers playing live music in-game.  While other MMOs have music instruments, they’re usually just automated audio clips; by contrast, Turbine created their instruments with a dynamic, three-octave system, so that players could actually perform on them.

Bloody marvellous. A bit basic, but so what. It's early days.

I bet Raph had this sort of thing in mind when he designed the early SWG, and I also bet it was quashed by "IP protector" types who didn't want to see Twi'Leks rocking it to something 'not in the narrative'. However, this is pure conjecture, and I shall celebrate it with a cup of tea.

Heely's Gamer Shoe

Fake buttons, mimicking the 360's control system, on Heely's new Gamer Shoe.

Another "why? well why not?" product, and firmly representing the cultural importance of these machines to people who like to slide around the world rather than walk it.

Having said that, can't find any actual mention of it over at Heelys...

(Found at Engadget)