I forgot to do what? You're kidding.

I just realized that I haven't posted a single thing about 9Dragons. Well, the drought is over! 9Dragons is our martial arts themed MMORPG. That's right, I'm no Chow Yun Fat or Jet Li, but my character will kick their pei-gu's (that's Chinese for butts).

Set in the spirit of classics like Crouching Tiger and Hero, 9Dragons is definitely something different than what's out there now. Know what that feeling is? I do. It's the antsy anticipation of being able to feel the gut-wrenching angst of loving your mortal enemy and expressing it with sharp blades and high kicks. No? Then it's probably that Burrito Supreme from earlier today, you knew it was a bad idea.

Next Gen's article "Online Games Boom: Who Benefits"

Next-Gen has a great article by David Cole of DFC Intelligence (the industry's data geeks). The first three pages is nothing new, basically, online games will grow... blah blah. Skip to page 4, when David starts asking some good rhetorical questions.

In a feat of sheer stupidity, I will field these rhetorical questions... with no net. Here goes:

"When put into perspective, the online game market clearly is just getting started. Many questions remain unanswered. Chief among those questions is who will be the prime beneficiaries of market growth?"

Consumers will be the prime beneficiary due to an increase in choice, quality and pure entertainment. Suppliers will benefit because there will be additional demographic targets to cater to and more content consumption overall.

"Is it worth it for traditional publishers to risk their much larger retail business for risky forays into emerging markets? "

Is it worth it? Probably. Will they succeed? Probably not. They just don't possess the flexibility or the stomach for risk to enter the space (other than rehashing their current strategy and labeling it "online"). I like the Hollywood analogy. Even major movie studios must spin off separate companies to create independent movies (granted, the name implies independent but I'm pointing out that major studios couldn't go indy even if they tried).

"Can upstart online game companies like NCsoft continue to grow to challenge the more traditional publishers?"

Yes as will companies like Acclaim. =)

"Will traditional publishers see their markets shrink as consumers start to pay less attention to expensive retail offerings or will online games allow for new business opportunities that grow overall revenues and profits to record heights?"

YES, YES, YES!

Call it umm, market research...

What does an online games brand manager do when he wants to relax? Play an online game, of course. I'm like Santa playing with toys to get his mind off work. Wait, fat man doesn't even make the toys huh? Nevermind, you get the picture.

I signed up for EVE over the weekend. I have to say, it's visually stunning. I haven't gotten past the tutorial yet but I'm really enjoying cruising around the galaxy in my beat up newb vessel or for ST fans, newb-cular wessel. It's a shame you can't really enter any of the stations.

That's all. Carry on.

New MasterCard campaign shoots blanks, goes open source

Ran into the new MasterCard "priceless" spots during the Academy Awards tonight and my jaw dropped. The ad invites users to write their own priceless script and MasterCard will make the ad. Cool!

This is a great step forward for open source marketing (I'm going to call this OSM). Part of OSM is CGM, or consumer generated media and this is a good example. Strictly speaking though, even this is not pure CGM since it's still prompted by the company itself (but it's a good start).

Here's AdFreak talking about the ad.

A note on CGM: It's the current buzz word floating around the industry and I love it. Some marketers (such as MasterCard) are understanding it and starting to stick their toes into it. Unfortunately, I think it's too narrow a focus. It is only about the forward facing part of marketing, the messages and the ads.

But consumers experience so much more of your product. Why don't we start talking about allowing the consumer in on more, like product management decisions or even pricing strategy. CGM is great but it won't carry OSM. Consumer empowerment on many levels is what will make this happen.

Taxing taxes take toll on Toggle

I wish I could post some more tonight but I'm doing my taxes!

Reviewing my year in such quantitative terms is rather sobering, like a battlefield of numbers and symbols engaging in graphic violence. See you on the other side.

Gaming Vision listens to me talk and doesn't fall asleep!

Another day on the PR Blitznanza campaign trail! Yeeeha!

Latest interview is with Robert Hubbs of "Gaming Vision: A site for amatuer Gaming Journalists practicing the art of Editorial-ism." Neat idea, best of luck to you guys!

(Psst, you guys spelled amateur wrong, or maybe that's purposeful, like, you know, the irony of the word and all that? I don't know, I'm a stickler. Please don't revenge copy edit my blog. Eek!)

Oh behave! Children's advertising watchgroup is er watching.

If you advertise to kids, you need to read up on the guidelines set by CARU, the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Once you read up on the guidelines, you'll probably feel yucky about all advertising in general and that's not good. Because frankly, you say to yourself, there are rules because someone tried to do something naughty and got caught. And look at that long list of rules!

But then you click here to meet the Frito Bandito and realize, oh it used to be much worse.

And then you feel better... But it doesn't last, because you run into this beauty: Secret Sparkle body spray for tweens on a co-branded game on Neopets. No, unfortunately, sugar and spice is not one of the available scents.

So you vow to follow the rules because you're a different brand manager. You're a good brand manager. So you pause to reflect on your goodness. But then a voice sounding much like Homer S. says, "Hehe, the Frito Bandito is funny."

Video game legislation tracker, no settling here

Amber Night points to a nifty little hack of Google Maps that shows legislation targeted at video games. Check it out here

I adore this!

(Alright, it doesn't quite make me as giddy as the cheap gas Google Map hack. I haven't yet driven 10 miles to save 10 cents on gas but dang, I like knowing that I have that info if I wanted to).

As I was saying, I adore this! Not just because it provides a list of legislation but because they really didn't have to use Google Maps. A simple chart could have sufficed but someone, let's call this person The Genius, said, "Why don't we put it on Google Maps?"

And then someone else, who obviously got cut off on the freeway earlier in the day and is just a little bit bitter, said, "Can't we just make a list?"

Genius sighs and says, "But think about how cool it'll look. Fine, I'll do it myself."

Thank you The Genius. You are appreciated. Here's a little request. How about an overlay of the legislators that proposed these bills and the actual time they've consumed the content?

Bonus points for me, I found the one in Hawaii!

iMedia Connection with great one, two punch on game articles

iMediaConnection publishes two great articles today, one on in-game advertising and the other on what they call "alternate reality gaming".

The first is a nice "how to" on in-game advertising, but as I mention in my earlier post, I would classify this as being relevant for packaged retail games. Same moral to this story, make sure you're relevant or suffer the consequences.

Second article is pretty interesting. Alternate reality games are those online mystery adventures that marketers send people on to generate buzz for their products, like ilovebees (Halo) and Art of the heist (Audi). I'm not sure I like the name since it hides the true intent of these initiatives, which is product promotion. May I suggest, "red herring marketing", a marketing technique that diverts from what you're really marketing... until reveal. Don't get me wrong though, I think these things are way cool, for those that participate. The real question is whether or not this gets any traction beyond the hard-core audience. I doubt it.

Article on "In-game advertising"

Article on "Alternate Reality Gaming"

I get grilled about BOTS by eToyChest

This was probably the most in-depth interview so far. Some tough questions and I stole shamelessly from this blog for a lot of answers. Don't judge me!

Read the interview here.

Press coverage for Acclaim's BOTS so far...

Well it's been an exciting week. We got some nice coverage by the press and I wanted to just say THANKS!

Just a partial list of the places that featured our story: Gamecloud (interview with yours truly), Game Daily, Gamesfirst, Gamasutra, Joystiq, Games Industry.biz, we got Slashdotted, Myth Games, thread on Penny Arcade, thread on OnRPG, Jeuxvideo (en Francais)... I think you get the idea.

What a week!

Washington Post coverage of in-game ads

The WP has a nice profile on what's going on with in-game ads.

Read it here

Seems to be the moral of the story is relevance to lessen the intrusion of the ads. I totally agree with this, but I think there's another variable no one is talking about, the expended cost of the consumer.

I understand that relevance and immersion is critical if you're advertising on a game where someone has already paid their hard earned cash. But will the consumers be more lenient when the game is free? I think so.

Consumers are used to ads for radio, tv and print. I dare anyone to try putting an ad in the middle of a movie in the theater. Probably not going to work. Apply this to the game world and I think we'll find that consumers can enjoy free games with ads.