Tag: Gaming

Web Discoveries for March 9th

These are my del.icio.us links for March 9th

T-Zero

Our new advergame for T-Mobile, developed by Kempt Media and seeded by Killer Viral.

The brief was to deliver on the theme “Double Your Credit” to launch T-Mobile’s new product, which lets you top up £10 in the week, and recieve £10 free credit at the weekend.

I’m posting this here to to help the ‘viral’ process, so grab an embed url and get stuck in!

Yamake


Yamake Shortfilm from Yamake on Vimeo.

Tonight I’m going to a press event for the launch of Yamake, the first user-generated social game for Mobile.

Created by Gameware Development (Cambridge), and published through N-Gage by Nokia, the game allows users to share content with others based on a simple gaming mechanic.

A full review will appear once I’ve got a copy, but in the meantime check out this promo video.

Google Reveals Their Game Plan

Google are launching an AdSense platform for casual games.
Here’s some info to suit all depths of interest in this new development.

Here’s the link to Google’s official announcement:
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/10/get-in-game-with-adsense-for-games.html

There is also a YouTube “press release” of their announcement here:

And an example of how the in-game ads might look here:

And finally, an article from CasualGaming.biz who broke the story last Friday:

Google unveils its game plan
Oct 8th 2008 at 13:54 by Michael French:

Web giant Google has finally unveiled its long-awaited bid to enter the in-game advertising sector, revealing it is putting a big focus of the strategy on casual games.

In a post on the blog for the firm’s web advertising team Adsense, Google reps said that it is targeting web games in the first instance:

“Do you develop or publish web-based games? If so, you’re contributing to a growing trend – according to comScore, over 25% of Internet users play online games every week, which is over 200 million users worldwide. As a beta user of AdSense for Games, you can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within your online games to earn revenue,” the sales pitch reads.

“You’ll be able to show these ads in placements you define, such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over. Members of our AdWords team will sell your in-game ad placements directly to top brand advertisers, and you’ll also see contextually targeted text and image ads based on content and demographic information. In addition, you’ll be able to control the ads you see on your pages using our filtering options.”

Google has opened a beta for the service, which is open to publishers with predominantly (over 80 per cent)  traffic from the UK or US.

Demonstration videos for the service make reference to a wide variety of games – although both open with footage from Playfish’s Facebook Word Challenge game.

“We’ve built ad technology for games played within a user’s browser, and now we’re looking to expand our publisher network,” the company said.

Google has partnered with Mochi Media and its MochiAds network to add inventory to its available advertising slots.

Jameson Hsu, CEO of Mochi Media commented: “Google AdSense for Games will be able to offer a wide reach for its advertisers, and Mochi Media can better monetize international traffic for our developers and publishers.”

The news comes just hours after the company revealed its YouTube video service would start offering online sales of games as well via links from its relevant videos to online stores such as Amazon and iTunes.

Introducing… The Pico-Projector

mobileinnovation1Problem:
Mobile multimedia capabilities are increasing in uptake and potential, but the small form-factor we so desire in our handsets are beginning to inhibit a rich user experience.
The typical mobile screen size is 320×240.

Solution:
If your mobile has a pico-projector, it will be able to emit high-res imagery onto any suitable surface, up to 50″ in width.
This unlocks the full immersive power of your mobile web browser, 3D games engine, DivX movie player or video conferencing.

Market Readiness:
Pico-projectors are already on sale as stand-alone units, though are yet to be implemented in mobiles, PMPs or laptops.
The first of these hardware mashups will be on sale in the East by the end of this year, but it’ll likely be another 18 months before they reach Western shores.

Potential:
Aside from the new opportunities for deeper engagement with content and software on the mobile platform, the largest socio-cultural change will occur once people begin to share their mobile experience.
Picture regular consumers using the real world as a medium for virtual interaction.
Location-aware video advertising anyone?