MediaPost Discusses In-Game Ads for Mobile Phones

"Time To Get In The Game?", Steve Smith, Media Post, August 22, 2006. Quotes:

"All according to who you ask, mobile gaming seems ripe for sponsor underwriting. Some market researchers insist that portable gaming is booming and will be a $5 or $7 billion business by 2011 or so. Others, including some developers in the industry, complain of stagnation in the market. People like playing mobile games more than they like paying for them, other stats suggest."

"MauiGames had early but little-seen golf and sport biking games that actually included in-game ad notices. You run off a cliff in one game and you get some clever full-screen sponsor message. But the first robust dynamic game ad serving system hit the Web last week at GameJump.com. A subsidiary of GreyStripe, which developed in-game ad technology, GameJump boasts 80 ad-enabled Java based games you can download to a select line of phones on Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile networks. GameJump has an AdWrap engine that serves full-screen units before and after game play."

American Apparel Store in SL Taken Hostage in Fight for Voting Rights

"Following the lack of any progress towards introducting citizens voting rights to Second Life the [Second Life Liberation Army] began in-world military operations.

The SLLA selected as its first target the American Apparel Store in SL. Volunteers from the SLLA have been posted to the store and are preventing SL residents from buying any goods from this vendor.

The SLLA has no complaint with American Apparel but is seeking to introduce voting rights to Second Life. We hope that American Apparel will join us in putting pressure on Linden Labs to do this. The SLLA can then stop our attacks against customers using their store."

--SLLA blog, August 11, 2006, via PSFK

Data: Casual Game Audience Preferences

Casual games taking place of daily activities, CNet/Reuters, August 14, 2006

According to a new study by Harris Interactive, "nearly half (49 percent) would play casual games rather than go to the movie theater, 32 percent opted for them over movies at home, and 37 percent chose them over watching TV."

Dungeon Siege NPC Promotes Other Game

Developers have been promoting their products through in-game billboards since at least mid-1980s, but ArsTechnica writes about an entirely new twist:

"In Dungeon Siege 2: Broken World, our forum goer Scero found an NPC [non-playing character] that told him about the Dungeon Siege PSP game and offered him a code for it, as well as saying the PSP game had a code for items in the game he was playing."

EA's Julie Shumaker Joins Double Fusion

"Electronic Arts’ top video game advertising executive, Julie Shumaker, announced [August 14] she has joined Double Fusion as vice president of sales. Most recently, Shumaker was national director of sales for video game advertising."

-- Mercury News
-- Double Fusion's press release

News: WPP Acquires Stake in Wild Tangent

"WPP has bought a 3.4% stake in Wild Tangent for an undisclosed sum. WildTangent sells in-game ads for its in-house developed games as well as for third-party games developers. Mark Read, WPP strategy director, said the move would allow the group's clients to tap into WildTangent's in-game advertising network."
-- Brand Republic

Ford Cars in "Ford Bold Moves Street Racing"

image: IGN.com

Ford is preparing a big-budget full-length racing advergame featuring a model line-up ranging from "1968 Mustang GT to the 1973 Escort RS2000 to the hot-off-the-assembly line 2007 Shelby GT500". "Bold Moves" is Ford's current campaign slogan.

"One of the features in the "Street Racing" title that's certainly a bold move for Ford is the decision to allow its cars to show damage as drivers ding them up on the road. Damage will also affect the cars' performance. The issue has been a pain point for game developers and publishers licensing real-world autos for racing titles."

-- Enid Burns, "Ford Vehicles Featured in New Console Game", ClickZ.com, Aug.11, 2006.