Double Fusion turns up the IGA heat with Jana Friedman

Following Massive’s year end push to get the deals inked, in-game advertising competitor Double Fusion is turning up the heat with promotion of Media and Advertising veteran Jana Friedman to Senior VP of Worldwide Advertising Sales.

Prior to her new position, Friedman served as Double Fusion’s VP or Sales for the Casual Games Group, and replaces Julie Shumaker.  Shumaker was responsible for building the company’s sales force, and aiding in making Double Fusion into what it is today: a leading provider of in-game advertising to the marketing and advertising community.  Double Vision CEO and President, Jonathan Epstein made the announcement yesterday, also citing Double Vision’s double digit growth over the past year have put the company in a prime position to continue accelerated growth in the multimillion dollar in-game industry.

Friedman comes to Double Fusion via Conde Nast and Electronic Arts, where she served key sales and development roles.  She served as the Associate Publisher of Brides.com, Conde Nast’s premier bridal site, where her team created unique programs that allowed advertisers to reach this highly targeted audience.  Friedman successfully executed campaigns for a wide variety of clients including Discover Card, JC Penney, and Macy’s.

Prior to the Conde Nast gig, Friedman served as Senior Director of Online Ad Sales at EA where she oversaw a team that was responsible for generating advertising revenue on EA’s online platforms, including EA.com, Pogo.com, and The Sims Online Communities.  Jana Friedman is responsible for pioneering some of the ad industry’s first video game deals, and has been a driving force behind the recent uprising of advertising in the casual games environment.

As Senior VP of Worldwide Advertising Sales, Friedman is now in charge of leading the company’s representation of in-game advertising opportunities with over 30 of the world’s best known publishers and platforms, including but not limited to, PS3, THQ, SEGA, Eidos, and Midway Games.

“I am thrilled that we have a talent like Jana Friedman to build upon the successful foundation Julie Shumaker created here at Double Fusion,” said CEO Jonathan Epstein. “Jana has been instrumental in developing our successful North American media business, and we’re excited at the prospects 2009 will bring as we further our commitment to provide free and ad-supported games for everyone.”

Holiday 2008 online video game sales top brick and mortar

Comscore has recently released figures comparing holiday spending 2007 vs. 2008 revealing that both online sales of Sports and Fitness equipment and Video Games increased and outperformed offline sales during the holiday 2008 season.

Data compared data from comScores’s overall (online and offline) consumer e-commerce spending published by MasterCard Avisors’ SpendingPulse Unit from November 1 – December 24 of 2007.

The data doesn’t lie, with comScore showing that the top growing online product category for the holiday season was Sports and Fitness, growing 18 percent yoy, with Video Games, Consoles and Accessories growing a close 14 percent.  Naturally, the top grossing platforms include the big three: Nintendo Wii, Microsoft xbox 360, and Sony’s Playstation 3.  The only other positive growth segment was apparel and accessories, which generated higher sales as a result of retailers’ price slashing and promotions, combined with bad weather across most of the country.

And while certain categories lost significant traction across the board, the silver lining is that the online component of these sales is significantly higher than their offline counterparts

• Sales of Apparel & Accessories was up four percent online, compared with a 19-21% decline in overall sales of the category.

• Electronics declined five percent online, while Home, Garden and Furniture declined 14% online. This compares with a 26% decline in overall sales of Electronics/ Appliances.

• Jewelry & Watches declined 24% online, compared with a 34% decline in overall sales of Luxury Goods (including Jewelry & Watches).

“For an online holiday shopping season that recorded a disappointing three-percent decline in sales, a positive note is that e-commerce trends outperformed overall consumer spending in several product categories, which is to say that e-commerce continued to capture an increasing share of consumers’ wallet,” said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman.

Related articles

• Early returns show strong holiday video game console sales

Nintendo to bring microtransactions to Wii

Nintendo has recently released a bit more information about their plans to join Microsoft and Sony and bring video on demand to connected Wii owners.

Microsoft’s xbox 360 console now has Netflix up and running, and Sony’s PS3 is slated to get Play TV later this year.  Last month, Nintendo started leaking bits and pieces around the interwebs via their selected ad company Dentsu announcing that they plan to create specific programs for the Wii.  While Microsoft’s Netflix deal allows users to ‘rent’ downloadable content, and Sony’s system will provide a similar service, Nintendo, staying true to wii form, is going off in their own microtransaction-based direction.

Unlike the big M and S, don’t be on the look out for any movie style entertainment from Nintendo – which makes sense, as they’ve not bothered with the deal cutting that both Microsoft and Sony have trudged through.

Nintendo’s new path will happen via ad agency Dentsu, who also have deals with Fuji Television and Nippon Television.  Similar to wii’s weather forecaster, wii vote, and wii channels, Dentsu will create video on demand centered around family-oriented cartoons, brain teaser quiz games, culinary delights, educational, and other assorted lifestyle programming.  Given the delivery vehicle that Nintendo has chosen, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suspect that the channel will also be chock full o’ advertising.  Combine that with the extremely wide demographic that the wii console appeals to, we might be looking at a shotgun approach to the ads – one might see a game ad for a 4-12 age range title back to back with an ad for the superbowl.

Currently named Wiinoma, the service is expected to connect to the 18 million of the estimated 40-million wii consoles connected to the internet around the globe.

While some content is slated to be free, other not yet specified content will be available via microtransactions.  Japan is expected to get a first view of a live Wiinoma this spring, with a global rollout following shortly there after.

Turbine seeks microtransactions manager

With more and more Western development companies starting to see the light, or at least investigate and test the waters of microtransactions, 2009 looks like it might very well be the year of RMT and/or MTX.  More and more western developers simply can’t ignore Nexon’s run away success, doubling and tripling revenues from the previous year.  SOE is a prime example with the recent EverQuest and EverQuest II introductions of items available via an in-game shop, not to mention ‘home’.  EA is still working hard on microtransaction based Battlefield Heroes, and now Turbine is recruiting for a new position.

Despite recent staff cuts, Turbine’s Westwood, Massachusetts office is currently recruiting for a “microtransactions/e-commerce manager” who’s job responsibilities will include “delivering and maximizing the revenue derived from Turbine’s micro-transaction-based in-game store.”

While Turbine has kicked this idea around in a number of interviews, they’ve never given a truly concrete answer, but this job ad certainly hails a new direction for Turbine. 

While the Eastern market has a tendancy to lean on the ‘pay to pwn’ style of play, offering players superior items (mainly weapons and armor), this concept hasn’t really taken off in the Western market, where players like a more balanced play style, but do support cosmetic and non-stat enhancing items.  Turbine has played a lot of cards right in the past, and it would be a mighty stretch for them to botch this kind of deal.  If anything, I’m willing to bet the farm on the fact that Turbine is obviously going to respect the market that they’re working in and only offer cosmetic upgrades.  Then again – I may be entirely wrong, which, I hope for Turbine’s sake, I’m not.

Turbine’s responsibilities for this microtransaction/e-commerce manager include:

 

• Deliver sales and drive growth in monthly in-game transaction amount and frequency through merchandising and price/product mix optimization
• Recommend and implement in-game store offerings and promotions
• Use web analytics tools to optimize store layout, flow, and user experience
• Develop product catalog and roll-out plans for new product offerings
• Provide detailed reports and analysis of sales, traffic, and in-game merchandising
• Create and deploy email promotions to drive players to the in-game store
• Work with product development to balance the in-game economy and ensure that revenue driving game features and items are available to players
• Keep abreast of competitor and micro-transaction/e-commerce practices
• Identify short and long term product initiatives and opportunities for meeting goals and driving revenue

 

 

Facebook shelves in-house microtransactions system

Have a mental look through your microtransaction news archives, and you’ll probably remember Facebook’s J Morgenstern’s call to developers that were interested in working on an in-platform microtransactions/payments solution.  Got that ‘oh yeah’ memory on hand?  Good, because as it stands right now, a memory is all it is and will be.

Morgenstern’s initial offer required developers to sign a tight lipped NDA (non-disclosure agreement), possibly resulting in less than spectacular interest, and coverage/development news around the internet and amounted to nothing more than a mere ripple.  Surprising, as we know more about Zuckerberg’s choice in footwear than what could have been (and still could very well be for the right development team) the biggest news of the year.  At the time of the initial offer, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel didn’t hesitate and quickly became a primary source of funding, along with pulling up a chair at the Facebook board members table via his Founders Fund.

A highlight of the initial developer call reads:

Transaction-based applications that use virtual currencies or kick users out to PayPal could soon start accepting payments from users directly in their applications.

A Platform payment system could also be a significant revenue generator for Facebook. While Facebook is not making money directly from application use (developers keep 100% of ad sales), developers would be happy to pay a commission for the service.

Sounds reasonable, if not downright right on the money.  Fast forward one year, and it looks like the facebook in-house transaction system might be moving slightly forward that molasses.  Justin Smith of Inside Facebook ran a post on the 29th of December stating:

…one year later, Facebook has not developed the system, and some signs from the company point to the project being on hold altogether while it focuses on other priorities.

Facebook has apparently decided not to get in the middle of third party transactions, leaving merchant solutions to other payment processors. Developers can continue to choose between established providers like Paypal and new entrants like Spare Change and Zong.

When asked directly about the future of a Facebook Platform payments system this afternoon, a Facebook spokesperson said, “We’ve been excited by advertising and payments solutions provided by the market, and we currently do not have anything to share around a Facebook Payments system at this time.”

The very next day, Smith ran in article analyzing why Facebook have deprioritized an in-platform payment solution.  While the article itself is insightful, a read of readers comments (both negative and positive) should be required reading for anyone involved in the microtransaction field.

While this might be a bit of a setback for Facebook itself, I DO know a certain facilitator of microtransactions, particularly in the way of social commerce monetization that already has a tool ready to roll: fatfoogoo.

Related articles

• Not Coming Soon: Facebook Indefinitely Scraps Plans for Platform Payment System
• Why Facebook Opted for Platform Growth Over Platform Monetization in 2008

OGPlanet open US beta testing of Cabal Online

OGPlanet recently announced the open beta testing period for their newest free-to-play title; Cabal Online.  With almost 1 M players already enjoying the game across Europe and Asia, this much anticipated online action game now arrives on American shores.  The beta period opens today, January 2nd through to the official launch planned for February 21st.

Cabal will be a new and exciting entry to the free-to-play, microtransaction space with a host of features.

The game centers around players defending the people of Nevareth from an evil entity known only as CABAL.  This cabal nearly destroyed Nevareth centuries before, but the land was saved and rebuilt by seven great masters that use Force Power.  Fast forward 1000 years, and CABAL has returned to finish the job, leaving players to master the Force (Luke) and save Nevareth.

Cabal Online is set in a rich and featured filled environment which includes ice temples, forgotten ruins, desert hideouts, mutant forests and volcanic citadels.  Not wanting to be just another ‘me, me, me’ MMO, Cabal features a number of rich, dynamic quests, including over 300 dungeons (300!?!?!), and 170 levels (zOMG!).

Game Features:

• An interactive combat system that utilizes combination attacks (precision and timing sensitive) to deliver blow after blow with NPC and PvP encounters.
• Six distinctive classes of characters-Warrior, Force Archer, Blader, Force Shielder, Wizard and Force Blader-each offering an entirely unique game play experience within Cabal.
• An in-game downloadable jukebox that allows players to download their own songs to play while they take on Cabal.
• A fluid fighting interface that brings intuitive and elegant motions to players’ fingertips. Different classes bring unique movements and actions to their character both in and out of the battle zone.
• All in-game items can be crafted into new items or enhancement.
• A dynamic character-creation tool with more than 200 options.
• More than 300 dungeons featuring highly original and challenging quest designs to explore.
• Magical and mystical unlockables enhance healing, attacking, crafting and shielding powers.
• Astral cycles and boards allow players to travel great distances in short amounts of time.
• Hundreds of weapon styles, ranging from blade, bow and arrow, guns, and magic, are available.
• Supports multi-player Server-Client.
• A state-of-the-art game engine delivers stunning, high-polygon-count 3D graphics at a sustainable high frame rate, even on low-end machines.
• Unparalleled special effects: dynamic lighting shading, Z-buffering, particle-based effects.
• An engine designed and built by a staff experienced with massive network traffic management to minimize any latency.
• Supports most popular 3D hardware accelerators.

For more info on Cabal and to sign up for the open beta, visit cabal.ogplanet.com

fatfoogoo – a year in review

2008 has been a banner year for us here at fatfoogoo.  Not only have we had some amazing talent join us, but interest in not only what we do, but what we can do for the gaming community as a whole has skyrocketed.  Below are some selected highlights from an outstanding year for the foogoos.

I myself joined the foogoos back in April and started coverage of any and all things games, but quickly narrowed that focus down to any and all things free-to-play/microtransactions.  Given the nature of what fatfoogoo does, providing world-class microtransaction based economies to game developers and publishers, this seemed like an obvious choice.  Tie that into the massive upswing in microtransactions over the coarse of 2008, et viola, you’ve got the fatfoogoo blog.

While I couldn’t get an exact number or frequent flier mileage points out of him, our fearless leader Martin Herdina is almost certainly on a first name basis with a number of Vienna Airport staff members.  Back in May, Martin went back to his old stomping grounds and represented fatfoogoo at the ION Game Conference in Seattle, standing shoulder to shoulder with serious industry players including EA, Bigpoint and Crytek.  Martin was there not only to represent fatfoogoo, but to also offer up informed and detailed opinions on free-to-play gaming and how microtransactions can help developers monetize.  A summer full of incredible developments (See below) kept Mr. Herdina out of the check in lines, but as soon as September rolled around, Martin was beating feet (and being scanned with a magnetic wand) this time in Los Angeles for the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo.  A short time later saw fatfoogoo at the Austin Games Convention where we produced a live demo of just a few of fatfoogoo’s features (special thanks go out to the guys that work on the technical end of the foogoo system.  You DO know that Red Bull is an Austrian product, don’t you?  I think these guys may very well have been members of a beta test for super strength Red Bull).

Mid August must mean games in Germany, as who could miss the Games Convention Leipzig?  True to form, the GCDC also heard from Martin talking about in-game economies and item trading, while yours truly along with Patrick and Loki, scouted the convention floor, speaking to a number of games developers about current and upcoming projects.  No time to slow down now Martin, there’s the Virtual Worlds Forum London to get to in October.  Don’t like the fish and chips?  No problem, you’re slated to join Stevie in San Francisco at the vgSummit on October 10th.  James Brown may be the hardest working man in showbiz, but Martin Herdina might well be the hardest working man in the  microtransactionbiz.

But let’s not just make this about Martin, as there are plenty of other folks that make the heart of foogoo beat.

Back in July, our programming team reached a milestone and introduced elements of our technology to the Sun Partner Advantage Program via Project Darkstar.  The open source engine for game developers has already received a number of accolades, and via fatfoogoo, developers can now plug a monetization module into their game from day 1 or add it at a later date.  If our Project Darkstar integration wasn’t enough, a month later we received a nomination for “Best Business Idea of the Year” from German tech magazine Internet World.

2008 also saw the addition of two powerhouse figures at fatfoogoo.  In early August, we made the official announcement of adding Clive Jefferies as Senior Vice President of Business Development and Sales to the foogoo team.  Clive brings over 25 years of software product experience to fatfoogoo, and to say that he knows the ins and outs of international product development and management might be a bit of an understatement.

Likewise, in late September, we really lit things up with the appointment of industry veteran (and some might say legend) Stevana Case, aka KillCreek of Quake fame.  If you don’t know who Stevie Case is, chances are you might be filed under n00b, as Stevie is one of the first professional female gamers and the first woman in the Cyberathlete Professional League.  Stevie heads up our San Francisco office and serves as Vice President of Business Development and Sales.

All in all, 2008 has been an outstanding year for all of us here at fatfoogoo.  While there have been plenty of wins on a number of fronts, the above represents selected highlights.  Daniel Petri’s team of techs are the unsung heroes here, making all the pretty pixels play nicely together, and my hat goes off to them.

Looking forward, Martin has bound my lips with duct tape regarding some projects in the works, and while I’m bursting at the seams to tell the world about what we’re brewing up in the fatlabs, we’ve still got a few nuts and bolts to turn and tweak before it’s ready to be unveiled.  Stay tuned…  (no really, stay tuned, this is some pretty hot $*&#)!

So from all of us here at fatfoogoo, from Vienna to San Francisco, we wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2009!

SOE talks RMT with DC Universe Online

Riding hot on the coattails of yesterday’s Red 5 and microtransactions conversation, Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield sat down with DC Universe Online’s senior producer Wes Yanagi to talk about the game itself, development, and how RMT’s will factor into the game.

While a wide range of topics were discussed, the 500-pound gorilla in the room turned out to be the ye old subscriptions vs. microtransactions discussion.  Yanagi would not comment on whether DC Universe Online will go with one monetization method over the other, he did say that he thought microtransactions still have a huge potential.  Yanagi specifically pointed to Sony’s Free Realms, which he expects will turn a profit sooner or later, furthering the opinion that SOE is gently testing the free-to-play, microtransaction based waters and learning what the Western market will and will not accept.

Thankfully Yanagi and co. have learned quite a bit about MMO’s and their development, particularly the beta phase and when and when not to release a product to the general populace.  When asked about the development of DC Universe Online and MMO’s in general, along with producing a solid Beta (think the Hellgate London debacle), Yangani responds with,

“… For us, we’re playing it with the team, with our team. It’s kind of our product, our baby, and so it’s always “the best product ever,” and then we can keep playing on that.

But once we release it internally to other parts of SOE, we want to make sure that there’s another level of polish there, so that people are excited about that and then going on to the next step of any kind of closed beta.”

Given the opinions that we’ve heard far and wide in the Western market and the negative opinions regarding the ‘pay to pwn’ theory, introducing microtransactions to DC Universe Online might be a perfect gateway for SOE, as costume customizations in a superhero game simply go hand in hand.  Sony’s already headed down this path with the customizable Little Big Planet outfits, likewise with home.  Toss in the microtransaction based Superhero costume customizations that City of Heroes has already tested the waters on, and adding microtransactions to DC Universe Online is simply a no brainer.

Red 5 Studios talks Monetization

Red 5 Studios is a collection of former Blizzard and ex-World of Warcraft folks that has spent the past three years working on potentially the hottest MMO you’ve never heard of.  Their level of secrecy and stealth has become almost legendary.  So when an unexpected change in management surfaced last month, Red 5 Studios started showing up on the radar again.  Christian Nutt from Gamasutra sat down and talked to the now Board Chairman and CCO Mark Kern, and now CEO Michael Weingartner about the new management switch, and more importantly, just what are those Red 5’s working on, and where do microtransactions fit into the picture?

Red 5 has set out to be a global company from the get go, with just over 100 staff member currently working on the current project with two-thirds based in America, one-third in China.  Weingartner makes it very clear that the Chinese branch is not just an outsource, but integral to the company, as they include a number of artists and engineers.

And while Kern wouldn’t let any cats out of the bag, he did drop a hint of an upcoming announcement that will give the world just enough of a teaser to show what’s under the hood of this gaming stallion that’s been lurking in the stables for the past three years.

Nutt did ask the vital question of ‘what and how does Red 5 plan on making some money with this title?’ and while his response is expected, his insight to East v. West is quite interesting.

It’s very interesting to watch how these models work, because I don’t think there’s any one answer. I think you have to look at the type of game that you’re making, and even the market that you’re in.

For example, in Asia, there are very few subscription-based games left, aside from WoW and Lineage, for example. And just culturally, there’s a very different expectation there for how you monetize these games. So, we’re paying a lot of attention to that.

On the other hand, in the West, you have an expectation of a level playing field, and if there are going to be things like microtransactions, they shouldn’t affect that balance. We’re very cognizant of that as well.

That said, there are plenty of companies paving the way for the idea of a microtransaction basis, especially in the console world, where you have a lot of downloadable content.

It’s going to be an interesting future out there. We haven’t selected a business model yet. You can expect it to be competitive with what other triple-A games are doing out there, but it’s a very fluid situation right now.

Kern also continues with a highly relevant statement about the current economy and how it factors into game development, monetization models and pricing:

What’s interesting is maybe even asking ourselves, “Hey, how does the economy figure into this? What about the current financial situation that all these homes are going through? Are games really immune, or are people going to be saying, ‘Listen, I don’t want to pay a huge monthly fee. I want some other way to pay for my game?’” That’s another factor that we have to pay attention to.

Weingartner also adds:

Which all ties back to the whole design process of the game. And we’ve been very careful in the design process to accommodate the revenue model.

Given the resumes of both head cheeses at Red 5, along with their ability to successfully fly under the radar with development, they could very well be on to something outstanding.  Whether they’ll choose a subscription or microtransactions monetization module is yet to be seen, but clearly both Weingartner and Kern are very well aware of the up sides of both paths.  It should be a very interesting development to watch just how and the reasoning behind the selected model will unfold.

Stay tuned…..

Related articles

• Former WoW Developes Still Won’t Tell Us What They’re Working On [Mmo]

Acclaim announces new free-to-play – Knight’s Blood

Just in time to fill your holiday vacation with enough adventure to keep those visiting relatives at bay, free-to-play giant Acclaim has recently introduced their newest offering: Knight’s Blood.

A new free-to-play browser based MMORPG where player’s battle for honor and coinage, Knight’s Blood is yet another offering in Acclaim commitment to browser based fun for all.  Players swear their oath of knighthood and alla ‘choose your own adventure’ style, these new knights develop their own storylines based upon the choices they make in game.

Character creation starts with an overview page, complete with important information and more interesting – your own personal link.  According to Acclaim, you can convert knaves to knights online by ‘placing the link appropriately’.  The way I’m reading this is ‘recruit your friends and others to Knight’s Blood via viral messaging and/or other media, and win some in game currency’.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Players may also challenge other knights to duels, but no word of an official PvP system.  As with all Acclaim games, Acclaim coins (their native form of in game currency) can be purchased (microtransaction) via the Acclaim site.  This currency may then be spent on in game character upgrades.  Upgrades include hundreds of weapons, suits of armor, shields, amulets and rings, all designed to improve fighting abilities.  Players also have the option to customize their avatar and even create their own coat of arms.

Again along the lines of a ‘choose your own adventure’ theme, Knight’s Blood will allow players to choose the good or evil aspects of missions that they choose to accept; either via the Knight of Light path, or the Horde of Darkness.

While at the time of writing this, www.knightsblood.com appears to be down.  Either a ‘d’oh!’ on Acclaims end, or perhaps an overwhelming response?  From the concept and premise of the game, I’m not sure it’s going to pull me away from the three other MMO’s I’m playing right now, but I certainly could see it as a nice ‘lunch break’ at the office kind of game.  At least until Quake Live arrives.

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