Saturday Daily Feedly - Sad Peppers, Extreme Steampunk Makeover, Street Fight Poetry, Make a 100k in a year (Kinda), Big in Japan (what isn't?), More Dead Space (& ink), Peaceful Metal, More game bans in plan and charitable gaming to name of few...

What's it like? (The sad story of the hot pepper) Posted: 06 Dec 2009 04:57 AM PST Can you imagine how difficult it was to sell the jalapeño when it came over from the new world? "What's it like?" you'd be asked. Well, it's like a pepper (of course, it wasn't. Black pepper is dried and tastes very different). Well, it's hot (no, it's not. Hot is a temperature, spicy is a taste). It's not like anything, actually. Capsicum is an experience unto itself, and forcing me to tell you what it's like does neither of us much of a service. "What's it like," is actually shorthand for, "I don't trust you enough to just try it, so you better explain in detail what category this item fits into so I can decide in advance how to understand it." "What's it like?" is a huge impediment to growth and to the spread of new ideas, because forcing a marketer to pigeonhole an idea naturally limits it. "What's it like?" leads to sequels and high concepts and crossovers, but it doesn't get us 1966 Bob Dylan or even yoga class. Great marketers take advantage of categories every day. Great marketers understand how to create books or services or products or technologies that are very much like something else, but better. You should do that whenever you can. If you want a fast start and good sales, be ready to answer the question. When you have something that's a breakthrough, though, perhaps you need to say instead, "It's not like anything. You need to trust me and just taste it."

Social Gaming Roundup: Xbox Pets, Retailed Freemium Games, Billing Parents, and More Posted: 05 Dec 2009 01:00 PM PST Xbox 360 Avatars Get Pets – As Microsoft continues its quest to enhance Xbox Live’s social capabilities, it has added some snuggly new pets to the Xbox Live Avatar Marketplace. Launched just Thursday, users will be able to spend 240 Microsoft Points on a myriad of pets including three dogs (large dog, pug, and dog in a bag), three cats (cat, siamese, and long haired), birds, snakes, fish, guinea pigs, monkeys, and last but not least, a pony. Zynga Teams Up with The Hidden Agenda Project – Social games developer Zynga has teamed up with The Hidden Agenda Project to take the lead and aid in the “first broad game development contest designed to improve education for those who face challenges learning in traditional school environments.” The winner will be a single college or graduate school team and will receive a $25,000 prize. As it seems, this non-profit contest will be annual. GMG Entertainment Launches ON!DVD Online Powerpak – Though it’s a mouthful, prepaid card publisher GMG Entertainment is launching the ON!DVD Online Powerpak, allowing users to purchase collections of freemium online games at brick and mortar locations (namely DVD stores). The product will cost $2.99, and while that defeats part of the purpose of a “free” game, the idea is to mitigate the rather long download times required to play in the first place. The general idea is to coax these new users into buying GMG prepaid cards for Powerpak games. Thus far, partners include Cronous, Cross Fire, Dragon Sky, Dragonica Online, Perfect World International, Metin 2, War Rock, and World Golf Tour. The product was slated for a national “sneak preview” this past week at Target department stores, but will launch in full in early 2010. BillMyParents Partners with Offerpal to… Bill Parents – BillMyParents is a kid friendly transaction service that allows them to shop online. When it is time to make a purchase, a confirmation email or SMS text message is sent to whichever parent has opted for participation, complete with notes from their children, in order to finish the transaction. Having had success with companies such as Amazon, RockYou, Outspark, and Habbo, the partnership with Offerpal Media is intended to now bring the concept into the teen and tween fold. While the details have not been hashed out yet, Offerpal will be adding BillMyParents as one of its direct payment options (along with Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, etc.), allowing users to pay for virtual currencies via traditional methods or through ad offers. Outer Empires Expands to Outer Reaches – Metaphorically speaking, of course, but the Facebook, web, and iPhone space-based massively multiplayer online game known as Outer Empires is expanding. What made the title stand out was that users could play this EVE-like MMO from any of the three aforementioned platforms. However, according to Pocket Gamer, the game will be also expanding to the Android and, later, the XBLA platforms as well. Zong Benifits from Black Friday – It looks like mobile payments company Zong saw a good deal of sales on Black Friday. According to what the company tells us, it saw a 27% increase in total spending on virtual goods that day (more than the so-called “Cyber Monday”). The categories of interest are virtual gifts, social gaming virtual goods, and MMO virtual goods which saw a 15%, 29%, and 24% increase respectively. Friendster Gets Big Changes – As one of the oldest social networks, Friendster has seen a lot over the years, but this Friday played host to some major changes to the site. In addition to basic redesign, many new sections have been added including a “Friendster Wallet” for storing the virtual currency “Friendster Coins,” the “Friendster Gift Shop” for virtual gifting. and, of course, a games section. Furthermore, according to Reuters, the social network will be sold to an Asian buyer by the end of December for at least $100 million. Among the short-listed bidders is Chinese internet business Tencent.

Extreme Makeover: (Steampunk) Home Edition Posted: 05 Dec 2009 11:14 AM PST Individual steampunk items are pretty cool and everything, but what about an entire steampunk house?

GP Xmas Calendar 2009 - Door 5 (One of The Most Expensive Thing In Game Dev) Posted: 05 Dec 2009 10:44 AM PST Animations. Custom made animations are expensive. Earlier I was thinking that 2D versus 3D means cheaper expenses (Which probably is true) but after re-thinking this I believe that animated versus non-animated has much more dramatic expense increase. If you have a 3D game without animations, it will (quite likely) be much less expensive to produce than a 3D game with animations. Doing a 3D game that relies on physics for example cuts expenses pretty nicely in the art department. Same thing with 2D games: a physics based non-animated game (or with little animations) will require much less work than a 2D game that requires animations. This might sounds obvious thing (or “not a big deal”) to some people, but I really think that game developers - especially beginners - should think of this when starting their new game projects or when adding new features. The more animations it needs, the more work it means. I’ve done Dead Wake for couple of years, and I’ve done my best trying to avoid creating animations (or art) for the game… and even then it has required a pretty good amount of hours to get all the pieces together. I tried having animations and even hired couple of guys at some point but it took quite a bit of time (and money) to get things moving. That approach wasn’t a good (to make things from scratch) so I focused on getting ready made art packs (and then customizing some animations). I’m not complaining - this has been a long dream (like since when I was 15 years old or something) to create a 3D game and I I’m really close to the release. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about costs, it’s the thing that animations can be expensive and take loads of time & effort to get done. Are they worth the effort? That’s for you developers to decide when you are working on your games. I’m doing the same. If you liked this entry, feel free to visit GameProducer.net to read more similar articles.

Street Fighter: The Poetry Anthology Posted: 05 Dec 2009 10:18 AM PST Lightning kicking and dragon punching is all well and good, but occasionally you want to add a little bit of culture to the proceedings.

Dead Space 2 Teased With Ink Blots Posted: 05 Dec 2009 08:47 AM PST A cryptic inkblot picture has appeared on the internet, heralding the next installment in the sci-fi survival horror series.

Find Balloons For DARPA, Make Money For Charity Posted: 05 Dec 2009 07:50 AM PST GPS treasure hunting website Geocaching.com is giving you the chance to make a heavy donation to charity, all on DARPA's coin.

Jak and Daxter to the Rescue? Posted: 05 Dec 2009 07:00 AM PST The PSP's identity crisis continues, despite a helping hand from Jak and Daxter.

The first transaction Posted: 05 Dec 2009 03:41 AM PST Do you really expect that the first time we transact, it will involve me giving you money in exchange for a product or service? Perhaps this is a good strategy for a pretzel vendor on the street, but is that the best you can hope for? Digital transactions are essentially free for you to provide. I can give you permission to teach me something. I can watch a video. I can engage in a conversation. We can connect, transfer knowledge, engage in a way that builds trust... all of these things make it more likely that I'll trust you enough to send you some money one day. I can contribute to a project you're building, ask you a difficult question, discover what others have already learned. But send you money on the first date? No way. The question then, is how much time and effort does your non-profit/consulting firm/widget factory spend on pre-purchase transactions and how much do you spend on trying to simply close the sale?

Weekend feature: Paulina Bozek interview Posted: 05 Dec 2009 01:00 AM PST This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The Week in Review Posted: 04 Dec 2009 11:00 PM PST This week on the Week in Review: A legal defeat for Nintendo, boobies in occupied France, virtual pets on your Xbox, the mighty Kevin Butler and a gamer charity that helps kids with cancer.

Activision launch 'Game for Good' initiative Posted: 04 Dec 2009 12:08 PM PST Modern Warfare 2 makers will make a large donation to the War Child charity this weekend, based on the numbers of people playing the game on Xbox Live In an event branded "Game for Good", Activision are donating large sums of money to War Child, a charity that protects children in war zones, based on the numbers of people playing Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live this weekend. Activision have promised a minimum donation of £150k, with an additional £25k for every 100k players over 600k online over the weekend, up to a maximum of £250k. Game are also pitching in with wristbands and other gubbins, the proceeds from which will all go to War Child. Cynically, it is possible to see this as a transparent marketing exercise - especially at a time when, following the Mail and Keith Vaz MP's attacks on MW2, Activision are in need of a bit of positive PR. There is some irony, it must be said, in a charity for the child-victims of modern warfare benefiting from people playing a simulation of modern warfare. But in a way, there's a pleasing symmetry to the project. In any case, it feels a little unfair to be too hard on Activision, who are making a genuinely sizeable donation to a worthy cause. There are far worse ways of buying good PR, and they deserve their due. Ben Knowles, Music and Entertainment Director for War Child, says that the money will: "directly enable War Child to help thousands of children in the world's worst conflict-affected countries to rebuild their lives - reconstructing schools destroyed by war, reintegrating child soldiers with their families and getting children off the streets after war has forced them to leave home." David Tyler, Marketing Director for Activision UK & Ireland, is calling this "the largest ever charitable initiative the British games industry has ever launched", and he's probably right. In this area the games industry is still lagging a long way behind the film industry, where large-scale charity fundraisers and high-profile campaign tie-ins are commonplace. At the risk of sounding worthy: if this represents a move toward a games industry with a greater awareness of social responsibility, then surely that's a good thing? If nothing else, surely such an industry would make it easier to argue with those like Keith Vaz, who see games like MW2 as a "very dangerous and violent" influence on society as a whole (and on children especially), and little else. Game culture Xbox Games guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

U.S. and U.K. Will Have to Wait for MGS: Peace Walker Posted: 04 Dec 2009 03:16 PM PST Japanese gamers will be playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker earlier than other parts of the world, but not by too much.

Big in Japan Nov. 16-22: DSi XL Posted: 04 Dec 2009 07:36 AM PST Nintendo's supersize handheld sells 100,000 in two days; Left 4 Dead, Taiko Drum Master best-selling new games on a mostly familiar top 10 list.

White Knight Chronicles heading West Feb. 2 Posted: 04 Dec 2009 07:29 AM PST International Edition of Sony and Level-5's PS3-exclusive JRPG heading to North America in time for Valentine's Day with expanded content.

Sponsors hatin' on Mochi Coins Posted: 06 Dec 2009 05:43 AM PST We're happy to sponsor Mochi Coins games. Send me a PM with a link.

Want to make 100k USD by the end of 2010, need advice! Posted: 04 Dec 2009 12:39 PM PST First things first, I don't really expect to make 100k by the end of next year. It is, none-the-less, the goal. There's a specific reason for this particular goal, however, unless people really want to know, I won't relay it here. I plan to make money by small downloadable games (about 1 month development time), ad-based flash games (2-month dev time, which I will explain below), my main game Hypno-Joe, and Indie Flux (my game review site). I would really like some information, stats, any advice you could give about making money with games, marketing, and so forth. Reason the downloadables are smaller is because I'm going to be using a tool that will help me make games quicker. And because after discussing with someone, the flash games are more likely to make money, so I'm spending a bit longer on the flash games. I've also heard about sponsored flash games, but from what I understood they're one time payments and they don't make very much, or at least don't have as much potential as something like using mochi-ads or whatever. I'm planning to theme the games to my main game Hypno-Joe (in some way) to sort of generate some buzz ahead of time, make people more familiar with the character. So basically any advice even if it's contrary to what I'm planning to do here already (or contrary to others advice), would be greatly appreciated. Also any more tips on the Indie Flux site that would help drive more traffic and thereby increasing ad revenue would be cool. Thanks for your time.

Experienced Points: The Writers of BioWare Posted: 04 Dec 2009 02:00 PM PST The characters in Dragon Age: Origins feel a little...familiar.

Restaurant Life Brings Quality New Ingredients to Social Restaurant Gaming Posted: 04 Dec 2009 01:54 PM PST Recently we have seen a move towards games that combine more complex game design seen in traditional casual flash games with social networking provided by popular Facebook games. We just covered one of these games: Battle Punks from Gravity Bear. Another one like this is Restaurant Life by CrowdStar. Restaurant Life has been steadily growing since launch, in part because Crowdstar has added Restaurant Life to its cross promotion toolbar on Happy Aquarium and Happy Pets. Today, the game has more than 1.8 million monthly active users. Of course, Restaurant-themed games are not new on Facebook. Playfish has Restaurant City and Zynga has Café World. And, like these games, Restaurant Life lets players earn cash by preparing and serving food to visiting patrons. Also, like the other games, you can hire your friends to serve the food. Lets look at some of the things that makes Restaurant Life different from existing games. Sophisticated game play More established restaurant rivals and even other games by Crowdstar have a cartoon-like look and feel. Restaurant Life on the other hand has a more realistic look and its graphics are rendered with a lot of attention to detail. Also unlike other restaurant games where visitors have to eat whatever the restaurateur is serving, in Restaurant Life the visiting friend can choose what they would like to eat. During the meal they can also asynchronously interact with friends by sharing a meal with them, paying for their meal, and playing object recognition based memory games. All of these in game actions create a more engaging game environment for those players who desire more interactivity and realism in their games. Extending your social graph Most Facebook games are created so that you can only play them with your existing friends. From a user standpoint this can be a problem both when the game is new and there are fewer friends playing it with as well as when the game is old and the ability to move up is restricted by ones’ social graph. We know that users experience this problem as evidenced by the multitude of Facebook (and sometimes in-person) social game groups as well as threads on application forums, all of which involve users asking each other to add them in order to be more active in the game. Limiting game play to a user’s existing social graph is also a problem from a developer’s standpoint as it represents the loss of an opportunity to provide users to engage with the game longer. Restaurant Life cleverly surpasses this problem through a restaurant city guide feature, which allows users to find and visit rated restaurants of others Facebook users who they may not already be friends with. To make sure visitors going to new restaurants through the guide have a quality experience, Restaurant Life only allows restaurants that have remodeled the default version to list themselves in the guide. The app style and game play are significantly different for earlier Crowdstar apps, which made us wonder if this was an outside developer app being promoted by Crowdstar.  Yvonne Lee, marketing manager at Crowdstar tells us that the app is developed by Crowdstar Labs, a skunkworks team assembled occasionally inside CrowdStar with the charter to try innovative new ideas. Restaurant Life definitely fits the bill for innovation of games on Facebook. Sana Choudary works with traditional game developers who are having the challenge of understanding how to build social games. She helps them understand how to use and optimize viral channels and social media marketing to build popular social games. She blogs at Traffichoney.com.

Brazil Debates "Offensive" Games Ban Posted: 04 Dec 2009 01:02 PM PST A bill has been set in front of Brazilian legislators that would make the importing, distribution, or production of "offensive" games illegal and punishable by a prison sentence.