Posts Tagged ‘kotaku’

Five top trends immerge from LA Virtual Worlds Expo 2008

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

Last week’s Virtual Worlds Expo 2008 in Los Angeles has come to a wrap with bits and pieces of news floating around here and there.  When you pack a few hundred industry insiders all in once place at the same time, opinions and trends are bound to blossom.  CEO and Co-Founder of Frenzoo, Simon Newstead gives us his view the Virtual Worlds Expo 2008, and what we should be watching via freetoplay.biz.

Covering the top five immerging trends, Newstead covers everything from ‘The War on Geekiness’ to ‘Taking Virtual Responsibility Seriously’.  Kotaku’s interested in the reverse transition starting to happen from Virtual Worlds going retail, but WeeWorld’s position on Branded Items: Not Free For Long reveals a growing trend in Marketing and diversified revenue streams:

WeeWorlds head of marketing, Lauren Bigelow, explained the plans of the 25 Million strong WeeMee community: to date, all branded items had been free, but some items will soon cost money, such as premium branded items like an upcoming Paris Hilton.

Why? Charging money for branded items increases exclusivity – and therefore buzz – driving the marketing campaign’s objectives. Obviously a revenue stream is a happy side effect as well.

Used well, it sounds like a win-win. Expect experimentation on branded item pricing to happen in coming months.

As Newstead states, driving a marketing campaign and generating buzz via exclusivity is a great way promote in game sales, AND the happy side effect of a revenue is an added plus.

While WeeWorlds was featured here by Newstead, if it works for WeeWorld, we will certainly see an increase in similar revenue models in the future, as publishers and developers still wrestle with the Sweet Spot question, and aim to please all.

To read more about Newstead’s top five trends coming out of the Virtual Worlds Expo 2008 in Los Angeles, visit freetoplay.biz.

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Company of Heroes released as microtransaction title in Asia

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

While boatloads of information was pouring out of LA at E3, it seems like THQ decided to give popular title Company of Heroes it’s unveiling in the Asian market.

Kotaku recently reported on the release, summing up what we were all thinking….how did this one get past me?  THQ’s Company of Heroes is their push at bringing the RTS game into the Asian online market.  They’ve taken the core CoH experience, slimmed it down a bit, and tailored it for online gaming.

The ‘new’ Company of Heroes is a free to play, micro-transaction based title that falls nicely inline with the Asian style of play.  Some of the gameplay changes include persistent online characters that will help you level up and carry across battles.  These ‘Hero’ units will have charged ‘super powers’ which go along with the new commander tree which includes 48 separate abilities/powers.

In order to show it’s support and dedication to the title, THQ have opened a Chinese office in order to launch the game.   A Korean version is soon to follow, and a Western version after that.

While never having an ‘official’ Chinese release, Company of Heroes already has a massive following in China.

Relic Entertainment General Manager Tarrnie Williams comments, “We know that there are at least one million pirated copies of the game in China,” noting that every time a patch is released, more than one million updates are applied from Chinese IPs – for a game that’s never been released at retail in China. In Sun Tzu fashion, THQ / Relic thinks it can turn this retailing weakness into a strength.

Williams firmly believes that the microtransaction model’s “got big legs”. James added that market hesitation (especially in the West) is primarily due to the low graphical and gameplay quality of games available in the free-to-play online space, two counts of which no reasonable players’ or critics’ jury could ever find Company of Heroes guilty of.

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Microsoft/Intellisponse respond to rumor fest

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

In a dramatic move, Intellisponse, the market research company handling the Microsoft/Xbox account responded to the latest rumor leaks. Intellisponse spokesperson is quoted as saying:

“…”

Right. Intellisponse is doing their job as market researcher. They may or may not have leaked some top level information regarding Microsoft’s intent to rip off Nintendo’s Wii a bit further by including “avatars”, Forza Motorsport 3 shipping on 2 discs, and Spiderman doing battle with the Marvel Zombies.

Intellisponse was contacted by Kotaku and questioned about the leak and the validity of the info. Spokesperson Elizabeth McCrocklin said, “It is our policy that we do not comment on rumor or speculation.”
Kotaku then replied to the email stating the the rumor was in fact real, as in it had hit the internet, and therefore was not speculation.

McCrocklin promptly ignored the message.

I can only imagine the phone lines were ablaze between Microsoft and Intellisponse yesterday. Finally, at the end of the day Microsoft stepped up to the plate and answered Kotaku’s question with, “We regularly test all kinds of concepts in market research with our Xbox community. These may or may not be real products in development or ever be released to consumers.”. Slick.

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