Business & Games: The Blog

This is a video of a Supernova 2008 panel featuring Doug Thomas (USC), Raph Koster and Dave Elfving (Apple). It's a good panel themed around the idea that "Massively multiplayer online games offer glimpses of how social interactions and work will develop in the Network Age. What can they teach us? How can businesses and online communities leverage insights from virtual worlds to develop more effective systems and practices?" If you don't have the time to watch the video (apple quicktime required, no pun intended of course), you can find a summary on the Uptake blog. Embedded version coming when I can find it.

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Alex Eperjessy on July 4, 2008 8:23 PM

Good article today on CNET called "29 potential video game monetization methods". Of course, there's nothing here amazingly new and never heard before but if you're the type who likes lists, this is as good as they come. As it happens, some of these models are older whereas some are just picking up speed.

Continue reading "CNET on Monetizing Games" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Alex Eperjessy on July 3, 2008 2:22 AM

Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel):

• has been around for 8 years
• 100.000.000 registered accounts
• between 8 and 10 million monthly visitors

Continue reading "Habbo in Numbers" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Alex Eperjessy on July 2, 2008 12:19 AM

by: Matt Rhodes

I often get asked to explain why SecondLife (SL) is more than just a geek and sex fest. Millions of people have visited this virtual world only to give up and abandon their avatar on day one (over 10 million according to Wikipedia). I don’t blame them. SecondLife isn’t ready for the mainstream. And nor is it SecondLife per-se that’s important.

Continue reading "Proving the Potential of Virtual Worlds" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Futurelab on July 1, 2008 4:19 PM

Skills Shortage could slow Serious Games market expansion

Sources: The Evil Number 27’s occasional bivouac - Serious (Games) Skills Shortages
Educational Games Research - Survey: Students Want Educational Games

In his Blog, Kevin Corti has recently made a reference to a good article on the BBC site about the UK game industries skills needs.

Continue reading "Building Serious Games Development Capability At Large " »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Eliane Alhadeff on July 1, 2008 2:16 AM

Via: Washington Post - Not the Usual Game Application

By Mike Musgrove

Microsoft is encouraging use of XNA Game Studio with student developers via the Game Development track in its annual Imagine Cup technology competition, that is wrapping up in Paris next month.

Continue reading "Environmentally Themed Serious Games via Xbox Live" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Eliane Alhadeff on June 27, 2008 3:53 PM

A few years ago, a couple of virtually anonymous Turkish developers founded TaleWorlds, a game development company that created one of the most innovative indie games of the last few years. The game is called Mount&Blade and if you want to read a really good game review of it, there's one here. The game is, like I said, quite excellent but there's another thing that caught my attention about it...

Continue reading "Business Models: TaleWorld's Beta Approach" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Alex Eperjessy on June 25, 2008 8:41 PM

by: Eliane Alhadeff

TODAY PRESS RELEASE

FORTERRA SYSTEMS AND CLEVER ZEBRA PARTNER FOR vBUSINESS EXPO AND VIRTUAL WORLDS EVENTS

Continue reading "Serious Games and Energy Costs Leverage Virtual World Events" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Futurelab on June 23, 2008 10:15 PM

by: Eliane Alhadeff

UPCOMING: Visual Web Convention 9–10th July London

The leading European event devoted to discussing the business opportunity and monetization model for Virtual Worlds, Serious Games, Social Networks, Casual Games, and Web 2.0

Continue reading "Visual Web Convention: Leading B2B Conversation On NextGen Web" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Futurelab on June 22, 2008 9:59 PM

by: Dick Stroud

AARP recently re-launched its web site. Part of the refresh is a new gaming area (sorry I should have said portal) provided by Arkadium.

Continue reading " AARP Launches New Games Web Portal" »

digg this| del.icio.us| Stumble It! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this article to a friend | Posted by Futurelab on June 20, 2008 3:47 PM