Iron Realms announces Earth Eternal January 10, 2007
Posted by David Kaye in : MMO, Earth Eternal , 9 comments
Iron Realms just announced our first ever graphical MMO. It will be fully 3D, free, and playable in a web browser.It’s called Earth Eternal, and the website is now live.
As a partner in the company I’m obviously far from an objective observer, but I’m incredibly excited about the game’s potential.
I’ve had the opportunity to see exactly what Matt and the rest of our team have been working on during the past year, and I am really excited about the quality of what we have put together on a fraction of the typical MMO development budget. Watch this space.
Brand as mythology December 11, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Uncategorized, Marketing , 2 commentsNice post from Seth, which struck a chord after my recent paean to Pinkberry: great brands are stories, and stories form around them. It’s happening for that little frozen yoghurt vendor right now.
How To Lose Friends And Alienate People: Sony Edition
Posted by David Kaye in : Marketing , add a comment
Check out this genius example of how not to do viral marketing.
Step 1: Hire a “consumer activation” agency (shudder) to put up a fake blog extolling the virtues of your lagging handheld gaming device.
Step 2: Fill your blog with witless fake amateur video footage.
Step 3: Get outed because your marketing agency forgot to hide the domain registration details.
Step 4: Watch your blog fill up with hundreds of derisive comments, and bask in the ridicule of every major gaming blog.
You have to wonder why big companies with a lot of brand equity to lose do this kind of thing. Particularly when there are so many ways to do it right.
Seth Godin’s Stupid Idea December 1, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Product Development , 17 comments
I enjoy reading Seth Godin, I really do. He has a knack for saying sensible things in a fresh and engaging way.
This idea of his, though, is completely inane:
What we need is a centralized captcha server that everyone can use for free. And how would it be monetized, you ask?
Easy. Logos.
It might be for soup or a server or an airline…
Type the brand you see above, please.
Which is great, except that a system like that could be so easily gamed that it would be rendered entirely pointless. Brand logos are supposed to be easy to recognize, which is the complete opposite of what a captcha image should be.
You might be able to up its reliability by distorting the hell out of the logo in question, but I don’t see thousands of marketing managers scrambling to take up that opportunity, do you?
The Five Stages of Pinkberry November 19, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Pinkberry , 7 comments
If you live in Los Angeles, odds are you have either tried or will soon be exposed to Pinkberry, the frozen yoghurt phenomenon that has been sweeping through the city in a blissful non-fat blizzard for the past year or so. People quite like it.
For the edification of the uninitiated, I present a humble warning: the Five Stages of Pinkberry. Mark them well.
Stage One: Anger
“Five bucks for frozen yoghurt? That’s bullshit. I’m not doing that.”
In my case, these strenuous but reasonable objections were overcome by a simple rationalization: it’s an experiment, and it is my duty to experience this frozen yoghurt in order to continue to function as a fully paid-up member of society.
Stage Two: Denial
“So that was it? I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
This phase typically lasts about a week. I assume this is the amount of time it takes for the Pinkberry tapeworm to incubate. (Disclaimer: The evil overlords at Pinkberry do not, to my knowledge, embed tapeworms in their froyo. I suspect the secret ingredient is simple garden-variety crack.)
Stage Three: Bargaining
“If I skip lunch and go to Pinkberry instead, I can get a medium combo!”
This stage can also manifest itself as direct bargaining with the Pinkberry servers (Pinkberristas?) for additional toppings, the generosity of whose distribution remains one of the most stressfully inconsistent aspects of the Pinkberry experience.
Stage Four: Depression
“I’m a pathetic, weak-willed addict, and I am destined to spend the rest of my life in thrall to my froyo urges. Could I get some more blackberries on that?”
Stage Five: Acceptance
See above article.
Gmail Mobile application rocks November 2, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Mobile , 2 comments
Google launched a free J2ME mobile client for Gmail today. It’s excellent.
Stuff I liked about it:
- It downloads your contacts from Gmail and stores them locally so you don’t have to type anything in.
- Automatically displays attachments like PDFs, Word docs etc without having to download or store them client side.
- It’s pretty speedy even on my sluggish T-Mobile EDGE connection.
- It preloads unread messages, though I’d turn this off if you don’t have an unlimited data plan.
The worst videogame trailer ever, and what it says about the mobile games business November 1, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Mobile, Games , add a commentIn case you missed the news: Oblivion Mobile was released on Cingular today.
“The Elder Scrolls(R) IV: Oblivion(TM) for mobile phones faithfully adheres to what The Elder Scrolls is all about,” said Douglas Frederick, President of Vir2L Studios. “In partnering with Superscape, we have built an incredible role-playing game for wireless devices that players are now able to take with them wherever they go.”
This is the game he is talking about.
World of Warcraft cellphone client released October 30, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Mobile, MMO , 20 comments
This is nifty. An enterprising individual has hacked together a mobile phone client for World of Warcraft. It doesn’t talk directly to Blizzard’s servers, of course - it acts as a dumb terminal that connects to your remote PC desktop.
I think standalone mobile MMOs are largely a dumb idea, but I can see this finding an audience among certain hardcore WoW addicts.
[via Warcry]
Second Life hype bubble finally bursting? August 15, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : MMO, Marketing , add a commentSteve Rubel has posted an article that comes to the same conclusions I did about the extent of hype surrounding Second Life. Most of the blogosphere still continues to smoke the crack, though.
Why do people buy virtual items? August 11, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : MMO , 2 commentsWhenever I talk to people about Iron Realms, the hardest thing by far for people to get is why our players are willing to spend so much money on virtual items - property that, after all, doesn’t ‘really’ exist.
In the first of a series of interviews, my business partner Matt Mihaly talks to a player who recently spent about $240 on a virtual cherry pie. For anyone who wants to understand the appeal of virtual items from a consumer perspective, this is essential reading.
