I'm currently working towards a career in advertising. Some of the things I hope to demonstrate through this blog include: my social media abilities, my ability to write, the ability to think strategically, the ability to think creativity and my knowledge of the advertising industry.
A rare occurance
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If you know me it’s no suprise that Nas is my favourite Hip-Hop artist.
I’ve mentioned in the past to Matt and Afran about how Nas is one of those
kind of ...
Attractive Struggling Artist + Internets = Magic
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Coca-Cola's recent partnership with YouTube and Facebook brings us a kick
ass advertising/entertainment/social media collaboration for Sprite called,
"Gre...
When I started In Third Person, I never anticipated it being nothing more than my personal place to write about video games. If people outside of myself enjoyed it, I would consider a bonus.
Today, a lot of people enjoyed it. First, the team at Wordpress, who chose to feature my blog on the Wordpress.com home page. Then, the many people who followed through. My site at most normally gets a few dozen visits a day, but today I broke 1,000 and got a lot of great discussion in the comments. I'm honoured to have my work featured on the Wordpress home page. It says a lot about the quality of my work and I hope that those who found my blog through Wordpress will continue to read my posts and comment on them. Here's to hoping the success continues.
This Christmas, there are a number of excellent charities to donate to, should you feel inclined to do so. I donate to a few assorted charities here and there throughout the year, but Child's Play is a bit different for me. In my experiences of donating, I knew that I was donating to a good cause, but never felt any personal or vested interest in the causes I was donating to. With Child's Play, for me specifically, I really feel like it's a cause I can personally get behind. Since 2003, Child's Play has raised over $5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books, movies and more for sick kids hospitals around the world. As a gamer, and as someone with a lot of younger family members that I've taken care of throughout the years, its a cause I can really empathize with. Hospitalized children don't spend all day being treated, and the downtime can get boring and at worst, detrimental to the recovery of a child. Providing hospitalized children with any form of entertainment can go a long way to boosting a child's spirits and ultimately, their recovery. There aren't that many charities out there like it and this one is powered by like-minded people, which makes the act of donating to the cause more powerful to me.
Last year, I bought Rock Band downloadable songs where all the proceeds raised by the songs went to Child's Play. This year, I went through their Amazon Gift List system and donated Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii to The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto. While my contributions aren't nearly as large as the $132,000 raised by the Desert Bus For Hope marathon, I'm sure my contributions will go towards a few smiles for children that really need it. From here on out, I'll make a conscious effort to donate to the cause when I can.
With all that said, it would be awesome if you donated to the cause too. However, I'm not forcing you to do anything. I would be happy if you donated to any charity this holiday season, especially one you feel strongly about. Anything we can do to make the holidays brighter for others is a win for everyone.
Making the rounds of video game websites and blogs is the above video from YouTube user Corporalgregg2, who recorded a few of the awkward things you can do with Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5. Everything from imitating Flava Flav's trademark, "Yeah boy!" to four Kurt Cobain's performing a Megadeath song with invisible instruments.
My initial reaction is, "LOL! Look at Kurt Cobain being crazy!" However, as someone who knows a little bit about the life and death of Kurt Cobain, I can't help but feel eerily uncomfortable watching this. I'm sure when the marketing team pitched the estate of Kurt Cobain to try and have him in their game, part of the deal didn't include playing in the same band as a skeleton or singing high-pitched vocals to a funk song. Part of the reason why Kurt Cobain is no longer with us is because he hated celebrity and the commercialism his music brought to him. He wanted to be seen in a certain light, and that not happening partially lead to his death. Ever since then, the legacy of Kurt Cobain has been fairly well protected.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise to see cyber Kurt Cobain in the video singing music from Bon Jovi and Stevie Wonder with an XBOX avatar and a skeleton. When the makers of Guitar Hero pitched this idea to the estate of Kurt Cobain, did they mention that this would be possible? If so, was the estate of Kurt Cobain cool with it?
I understand from a marketing perspective that having Kurt Cobain in your rock music game sounds like a good idea. However, giving users the ability to take him out of context doesn't seem very tasteful to the life and legacy of a deceased, iconic rock star that probably wouldn't have approved of this if he were still alive in the first place.
I was reading the June 15th issue of People magazine when I saw this Walmart ad as the back cover. The average person probably would have never caught this mistake, but I circled the mistake in red. Apologies for the glare, I took this picture with my digital camera and there were fluorescent lights in the room.
These two kids are rocking out with Nintendo Wii Guitar Hero guitars, leading us to believe they're playing some sort of guitar-centric music game. I can tell they're playing Nintendo Wii from the fact that Nintendo Wii Guitar Hero guitars require you to insert the remote into the guitar. The kid on the left in the picture has a Wii remote plugged in. But the kid on the right? He's pretty animated for someone whose guitar isn't actually connected to the game.
One thing I love about Twitter is being able to join and follow the conversation. Regardless of the topic, you'll be able to use the search engine to see up to the second what people have to say about pretty much anything.
Though this method does have it's limitations, which is why I find Tweet My Gaming so cool. It tracks in real-time all tweets that mention video games or anything video game related. Using Twitter search, you can only find stuff if it's hash-tagged or very specific things. For instance, if I wanted to find stuff about "video games", Twitter search would only pull up results where people typed "video games". Tweet My Gaming seems to be able to grab anything with a video game reference. It'll be cool to see all of the different variations on this idea pop up to follow all sorts of subject matter. Tweet My Baseball? Tweet My Lunch? Tweet My Re-tweet?
A few years ago, my brother and I posted this video of us playing Street Fighter II using DDR dance mats. We thought with such an original stupid idea, we were bound to skyrocket to e-fame.
As it turns out, a Taiwan-based video game website used our video, which through them has been viewed over 800 times. From what I gather, it was a rundown of every video game controller they could think of. Those two paragraphs above us? Here's what Yahoo! Babel Fish had to say:
A game's operating mode during like everybody knows, is coordinates in the picture the instruction and music rhythm, grasps punctually steps on treads fills up all around 4 directions to tread the spot, completes the dance step which the game assigns. Following and grows imitates innumerably, treads the pad also to grow each kind of variety disposition from the primitive section paper, until now is considered as on is one of as before popular game types.
Because the home use version treads the pad usually is treads 4 directions the point correspondence to the standard controller's direction key, and provides confirmed that Niu with cancels Niu the control function menu, therefore plays the family will work as a volunteer the attempt with to tread the pad controller to play other type game, even challenges the instruction complex wrestle game, also will be the kind impractical, but the bountiful interest the kind will slight the law in addition.
I think whoever wrote that was trying to say that you can use DDR pads for games other than DDR, even if it's dumb and pointless. I'm not quite big in Japan, but Taiwan is close enough for now.
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Today, Rockstar announced the title of the latest Grand Theft Auto IV expansion pack to the world. Everybody knew that an expansion pack was on the way, but the name or the theme behind the pack was unknown till now.
I don't need to tell you that the title of this expansion pack is going to raise a few eyebrows among the general population and the media (for better or worse), but before we jump into conclusions as to what this is about, let's put the whole thing into perspective. From the Business Wire:
Grand Theft Auto IV's second downloadable episode, The Ballad of Gay Tony injects Liberty City with an overdose of guns, glitz, and grime. As Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary nightclub impresario Tony Prince (aka "Gay Tony"), players will struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price.
Other than the fact that the main character works for a guy who goes by the nickname "Gay Tony", on the surface there doesn't seem to be anything..."gay" about it. While Rockstar is known for controversy, such as this video game existing in the first place, the Hot Coffee scandal and ESRB approved male full-frontal nudity (SFW), I don't see this product turning into anything you would expect anything with the word "Gay" to be about.
I applaud Rockstar for being progressive enough of a company to put that word in the title of arguably the most masculine game series out there. In the grand scheme of things, I don't see the problem in it. However, I'm sure that the media will and start laying ridiculous and untrue accusations about the product just because it has the word "gay" in it. That's to be expected at this point.
What really interests me though is the reaction from the gamers. From the people who actually buy Grand Theft Auto games. My perception of the people who play GTA games is that they are not the most open when it comes to that particular subject matter. Will the name of the game be a deterrent? So far I've been kind of surprised at how well overall the name has been received, but just to be a sensationalist, let's end this post with some of the user comments you would expect.
Did they really have to put the word "Gay" in there? Why couldn't it just be "The Ballad of Tony"? It's pretty sad to think Rockstar would put that in there to turn a few heads and sell a few extra copies, but it wouldn't be too far I guess, we are talking about Rockstar. I'd like to see them release their next pack and call it "The Return of Straight Nico".
Following in the footsteps of Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman comes Lego Rock Band, which was formally announced today.
Lego is not new to branded video games, having been in the space since 1998. However, since the success of the original Lego Star Wars, the brand has seen huge gains in both their game sales and more importantly, the sales of Lego blocks.
In terms of game sales, the Lego Star Wars series of video games alone have sold over 19 million copies, Lego Indiana Jones has sold almost 8 million copies, and Lego Batman has sold over 4 million copies. And how has this new wave of Lego video games boosted block sales? Sales were up 38% in 2008 even in the face of the economic downturn.
Where does Lego succeed in the video game space where other brands fail? Let's discuss.
The gamer in me instinctively wants to say that the plan works because the games don't suck. While they're not perfect, the games achieve an acceptable level of quality, unlike most advergames (including every Lego game before Lego Star Wars). The ad guys and gals of the world take this part for granted, and I hope in the future that they don't. The power of interactive advertising lies in the fact that you can associate your brand with a positive experience. If you give the consumer your brand and tie it to a negative experience, odds are they'll think negatively about your brand. Even kids have standards for video games and are looking for a positive experience, and a poorly developed game will get shunned the moment the game isn't fun anymore.
The marketers not well versed in the world of video games would probably say it sold because it was attached to popular licenses. Yes, having Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman helps quite a bit. However, if it was just the license association selling the games, then the increase in Lego block sales would only affect the Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman product lines. As big as those are, I don't think they're big enough to pull in the type of gains that Lego had in 2008. And they would have explicitly said their gains came from just those lines, which they didn't.
So what then makes these games sell more Lego blocks?
Let's break it down with the Anthony Kalamut classic, 1+1=3.
Lego blocks have for many years been a childhood staple. To kids, they are more than just blocks. You're building ideas. You're taking an idea in your head and making it come to life.
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Children love to play. They love to pretend. They love to make things and use their imagination.
= Fun, virtual and interactive Lego experience.
Every game in the "Lego" lineage captures the experience of playing with Lego blocks. All the characters look and move as you would imagine Lego people would. They fall apart into Lego blocks when "killed". Lego characters in these games never die, they just get put back together. The Lego pieces never talk, but they emote so vividly that they can convey an entire story without actually talking. Just like playing with Legos in real life, your Lego pieces never talk, it's up to you to think/say what your Lego people will say. The games feature a lot of building elements. And even within the framework of a popular series like Star Wars, they allow room for children to use their imaginations and make their own fun. Everything fun about playing with Lego blocks, they were able to translate into these games and inspire the youth of today to invest in the brand even further.
Lego has managed to put together the pieces of the advergaming puzzle to form something that works very well for their brand (sorry for the unavoidable pun). It'll be interesting to see how successful Lego Rock Band will be. Unlike the other games in the current Lego series, this one is a music game and not an adventure, and I feel that adventure lends itself better to the Lego experience. However, Google search has just exploited the limits of my imagination, by proving that lots ofpeople havebeen rockingout withtheir Lego pieces. Lego, if you're listening, all I ask for is some sort of nod to the brilliant video for "Fell In Love With A Girl" by the White Stripes.
According to a source that reported this to Joystiq, Lionsgate has registered the trademark for a Mad Men video game. My knee jerk reaction strictly as a gamer is, "This is going to suck." Licensed games still have a bad rap of being poor quality, and as of now, I haven't seen any proof that this will be any good. Am I unfairly treating this as, "Guilty until proven innocent,"? Maybe. But if you've followed the history ofcrappy licensed games, you probably would too. Heck, I'm still reeling from having paid $2.00 for a copy of E.T. for the Atari 2600, the game that set the standard for crappy licensed video games.
I got a 90% discount on this game, and I'm still pissed
But let's look at it from an advertising perspective. Games based on jobs is a hot trend right now, with popular games based on surgeons, cooks, lawyers and more. I think if someone really wanted to do an advertising game that appealed to a mass audience while respecting the business, it wouldn't be out of the question.
I think if we were to use a game as a template, something along the lines of Phoenix Wright in terms of interface and feel I think could capture the drama of the ad business while making it accessible enough for anyone to play. That particular style of game would definitely lend itself to an account services focused game. I could even see a media planner/buyer simulator working in the vein of the Tycoon series of games where you plan out an ad campaign and purchase the media vehicles you need and see if it works.
However, capturing the creativity of making your own ads within a video game I think would prove difficult. How would you make a game where you could create your own ads without it just being "Creative Suite: The Video Game"? And how would a computer judge the effectiveness of one of your ads? The level of subjectivity I think would be too much for a computer to handle.
I'll keep you updated on any developments on this story. As a gamer and an adlander, I'm hoping for the best, but I'm not holding my breath. Do you have any ideas on how to make an advertising video game?
When I started In Third Person, I never anticipated it being nothing more than my personal place to write about video games. If people outside of myself enjoyed it, I would consider a bonus.
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