The deal is another example of continued interest in in-game advertising and signals the first appearance of dynamic ads in some of the most popular game franchises in the world. The contents of dynamic ads can be changed on the fly on Internet-connected game consoles and PCs.

By September, Massive’s network will include Xbox 360 versions of five EA games: Madden NFL 08, Nascar 08, NHL 08, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, and Skate. The agreement also includes PC versions of Madden and Tiger Woods.

Ads will appear in typical places: on scoreboards, around hockey rinks, and during race updates. “Sports are such a natural fit with advertising,” said EA Senior Director of Game Advertising Shelby Cox. “We’re looking at alternative ways to monetize our games [and] we’re invested in growing this dynamic business.”

Parks Associates predicts video game advertising—including static and dynamic elements—will be worth $2 billion by 2012, up from $370 million in 2006 (see Game advertising to hit $2B by 2012).

The Massive announcement more than doubles the number of EA games that feature dynamic advertising. Current titles with such ads include Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon, and Def Jam Icon.

The addition of new games, especially Madden, clearly helps Massive build its network. “It’s a watershed moment when we can announce these big titles,” said Massive Marketing Director Alison Lange.

Now in its 18th year, the Madden franchise has sold more than 60 million copies and generated more than $2 billion in retail sales. The next iteration will be released in August, while the 2006 version was the best-selling game of that year (see Top Games ’06: Madden).

Such titles are valuable not only for their stellar retail sales but also because they reach many players beyond those who actually buy the games. Madden NFL 07 sold nearly 4 million copies by the end of 2006, but research firm Interpret released a report in March saying the game has been played by some 14 million people (see Who’s Playing What and When).

Though this newest partnership will bring Massive and EA additional revenue, it leaves persistent questions about how EA plans to handle dynamic ads in versions of its games for other systems—particularly Sony’s PlayStation 3.

Microsoft’s 2006 acquisition of Massive (see Microsoft’s Massive Purchase) gave marketers an easy way to get in to games on the Xbox and left many wondering if Sony would make a similar move. Sony has yet to talk at length about its in-game ad strategy.

EA wouldn’t share many details about what it knows of Sony’s plans, either. “We’re in conversations with them, as are many publishers,” Ms. Cox said. “We hear in-game advertising is a priority [and] it’s something they’re looking at very seriously.”

Sony said earlier this month that it’s working with the Nielsen Company to develop a standard for measuring video game playing and make it easier for advertisers to get involved in the budding market (see Sony, Nielsen Partner on Ads).
]]>Ryan Olsonhttp://redherring.com/Home/22438#0Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:13:36 GMThttp://redherring.com/Home/22438http://redherring.com/Home/22416Oberon Media, a maker of casual computer games, said Tuesday that it’s acquiring PixelPlay, which creates games and distributes them via interactive television.

The acquisition is the second announced by Oberon in as many months and completes a series of strategic moves made by the company to help it reach consumers across three screens: those of PCs, mobile phones, and televisions.

In late May, Oberon announced it was acquiring I-Play, a U.K.-based mobile-gaming specialist, for an undisclosed sum (see Merger Game).

Terms of the PixelPlay deal were not disclosed, but Oberon representatives said the two New York–based companies are already working to combine services and consolidate licenses.

Oberon currently distributes a portfolio of more than 1,000 games through a network of partners including several hundred wireless carriers and web sites run by companies including Microsoft, Comcast, BSkyB, Sprint, AT&T, Yahoo Games, and Electronic Arts.

PixelPlay, meanwhile, has access to games and licenses from companies including Hasbro, Atari, WPT Enterprises, and the Learning Company.

According to PixelPlay CEO Ron Chaimowitz, the deal puts Oberon in a better position to be innovative and take different business models across the company’s various platforms. He also said players will be able to access community features across different devices. Features common to the industry include chat, scoreboards, and customizable player characters called avatars.

Mr. Chaimowitz will join Oberon and lead the company’s interactive-TV efforts.

Reality Check

Though the PixelPlay deal gives Oberon access to yet another market, it’s a tiny one. In the United States alone, video games generated more than $12 billion in 2006, but revenue from set-top box gaming accounted for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the market, said Michael Cai, a broadband and gaming analyst with Parks Associates.

A big reason for that is indifference to the platform by major game publishers and developers, but cable providers aren’t exactly championing the market either. “Carriers have so many things on their plate, and games [are] not on top,” Mr. Cai said. Analog cable subscribers—about half of all TV subscribers—can’t even access the games because they don’t have a set-top box, and that means an even smaller pool of potential customers.

But the market is changing. Increasing numbers of consumers have access to digital TV services and digital video recorders with built-in hard drives. Service providers, meanwhile, are looking to gaming as a way to increase subscriber loyalty and potentially increase revenue.

PixelPlay’s Mr. Chaimowitz admitted that in the past cable companies focused on building their infrastructure to include video on demand, voice over IP, and high-definition service, but he said major TV service providers will be deploying “significant” game services soon. “We’re now at a watershed,” he said.

Corporate software maker Seriosity on Thursday released a lengthy report detailing some of the ways in which people who play massively multiplayer online role-playing games are developing skills vital to business success. And the company believes these types of games are shaping the next generation of corporate leaders.

While the idea isn’t new, the study provides a detailed look at some of the ways in which gamers are learning to collaborate, stay organized, and take risks. For dedicated players, it could prove that the hours they spend each week managing their fellow warriors, mages, and priests might actually help them conquer the corporate world as well.

“Businesses are waking up to the importance of games,” said Seriosity General Manager Simon Roy. “[Gamers] bring the same neurons to work as they do to game playing.”

The Palo Alto, California-based company, which teamed up with IBM and researchers from Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the study, found that logic and visualization skills, as well as creative thinking and collaborative abilities, are widely applicable in both domains.

“The values you expose in the game are in many places very valid and respected… whether you are online or offline,” said Mr. Roy. “[Many] are generic people management issues.”

The research could be considered somewhat self-serving for Seriosity, which makes productivity software—inspired by multiplayer games—for the enterprise.

The report emphasized the importance of online environments in facilitating the development of leadership qualities. Games make it easy to collect and see information about a user’s performance and offer multiple ways in which players can communicate and collaborate. And the speed at which gamers play and interact gives them a chance to develop their skills quickly.

“A person playing a game for several years can get [the equivalent of] 10 years of management experience,” Mr. Roy said.

Another interesting point is that experienced gamers are often used to working with technology that is much more advanced that the type they encounter in the business world. According to Seriosity, businesses should look to games for ways in which to make leadership easier and more effective.

“What we’ve found is that success as a business leader may depend on skills as a gamer,” IBM Almaden Director of Services Research Jim Spohrer said in a statement.

San Jose, California-based Gaia is an online world popular with teens where users create and customize digital characters, play games, and socialize. The partnership is designed to attract new advertisers and give Millions of Us a new audience for their virtual branding campaigns.

Millions of Us has created virtual Pontiac cars, a drag strip and monster truck races aimed at promoting the car company’s brand within Second Life. Its customers also include Microsoft, Warner Brothers, and Intel.

The content creator is now hoping to move from being a developer for three dimensional worlds like Second Life to an agency with experience in multiple types of social media. “A lot of the things we’ve learned over the last year about what makes people successful in Second Life are broadly applicable to these other environments,” said founder Reuben Steiger.

Founded in 2003, Gaia attracts more than 2 million unique users each month. Between 50,000 and 80,000 people are on the site at any given time, and Gaia’s forums are some of the busiest on the Internet, with more than 1 billion user posts.

As their numbers grow, Gaia users are getting access to a greater amount of branded content from media companies and other partners. Last month the company unveiled a virtual movie theatre where users can watch trailers, gab, and engage in mischief (see Go Ahead, Talk During the Movie).

A trailer for the new Nancy Drew movie, for instance, debuted on the site on May 21 and has since been viewed more than 1 million times, company representatives said.

Gaia yesterday unveiled a partnership with Toyota’s Scion brand that lets users buy and customize virtual versions of Scion cars. Gaia representatives said members of the community downloaded more than 91,000 Scion xB cars in the first 24 hours the autos were available. “It’s so much richer than what you can do on a normal site,” said Gaia CEO Craig Sherman. “If Scion had partnered with MySpace, they would have put pictures of cars… on the site.”