Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

The amazingly named Usain Bolt may be the fastest man in the world, winning gold and setting world records in every event he competed in at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Puma created a casual, but fun game where you can race against the Olympic champion. It's very nicely designed, *simple* and funny. Pick your colors, and use the spacebar and arrow keys to try to outsprint him.

If you hear the sound of crazy fast keyboard tapping today (and laughing), it's probably from this site.

Jay Bain

Mentos just launched a fun advergame called Mentos Kissfight, a head-to-head Mortal Kombat style fighting game where you throw kisses instead of punches. It comes are part of a larger campaign emphasizing the kissability of Mentos-freshened mouths. Other examples include their Kiss Cam web game, and the latest TV commercial for Mentos gum.

The game play is fun, but overall I think that the campaign misses a big opportunity by not integrating any social components. Mentos seemed to understand the importance of social media back when they were trying to reap the rewards of the Diet Coke Mentos phenomenon. However, this campaign seems to miss the boat.

They are not promoting the game to the game-obsessed social network demographic. They are not tapping into the fact that gamers like to share tips and brag with each other. You can't even play against other people!!

Cute concept, but ultimately shouldn't kissing be more of a social experience?

Marta Strickland

levelHead v1.0, 3 cube speed-run (spoiler!) from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.

New Zealand artist Julian Oliver's latest work, levelHead, allows viewers of the piece to interact with a 3D world by simply moving wooden blocks around in front of a web cam. How his work differs from most motion capture controlled art installations, is that the physical item that one uses to control the experience is replaced with a tiny digital world. Through moving and rotating coded blocks, the "player" attempts to move a tiny trapped man through an elaborate, interlocking labyrinth stretching one's spatial memory and logical reasoning skills.

A nice gallery of shots of levelHead is available here:
http://selectparks.net/~julian/levelhead/images/play-shots/

James Vreeland

We know that technology can help market products/services and make our lives easier. But, one of the most important, and often overlooked, aspects of our business is how technology is being used to help people--to bring meaning and delight into the lives of folks who might not otherwise have an opportunity. I couldn't help but smile when I read about Andrew, a paraplegic young boy, who creates digital paintings with a Wii-enabled wheelchair. The short film below captures his process as he learns how to maneuver his chair to create images on a screen and becomes a true artist filled with the joy of personal expression.
 
http://blog.ted.com/2008/06/wii_remote_whee.php
 
Now, that's an exceptional experience--in the best sense.
 
Amanda Van Nuys

Creative Beef offers this great update on a MMORPG, "World of Advertising".

Misha Cornes

Spending hours randomly tagging photos, describing songs, and outlining objects sure doesn't sound fun, and certainly doesn't sound like something you would do for free. But, there is a growing need to transfer human intelligence to machine intelligence in order make smarter tools. In order to get humans to participate, FUN is not a luxury, but is the key to success.

Enter GWAP (games with a purpose), a new site launched by scientists in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science. It is spearheaded by the computer scientist Luis von Ahn, father of the CAPTCHA technology. The site features a series of highly addictive games that match users together randomly in challenges that are fun, but also serve a purpose.

"We have games that can help improve Internet image and audio searches, enhance artificial intelligence and teach computers to see. But that shouldn't matter to the players because it turns out these games are super fun." - Luis von Ahn

The site currently includes five games, although more are on the way. The ESP Game should be familiar to anyone who has played around on Google Image Labeler. The four other games include:

• Matchin, a game in which players judge which of two images is more appealing, is designed to eventually enable image searches to rank images based on which ones look the best.
• Tag a Tune, in which players describe songs so that computers can search for music other than by title - such as happy songs or love songs.
• Verbosity, a test of common sense knowledge that will amass facts for use by artificial intelligence programs.
• Squigl, a game in which players trace the outlines of objects in photographs to help teach computers to more readily recognize objects.

The games also include other small but powerful tricks to keep users engaged and active, including top rankings, player recognition levels, and integrated online chat with your mystery partner after the challenge.

Marta Strickland

If you're not a gamer, a brief explanation. Penny Arcade is one of the top webcomics devoted to the gaming industry. It's one part critic site, one part humor website. In a bold move, these armchair critics have become part of the industry they lambaste three times a week. They have partnered with Hothead Games to produce "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness", an episodic video game released today for Xbox 360 and PC/Mac/Linux.

Their launch campaign for the game includes banners on their own site that feature a quote.

"this game sucks and anyone who likes it sucks. penny arcade sucks and is as funny as something that's not funny at all."
Posted by: ddf
Wired blog | comments

Apparently as popular as Penny Arcade is, they do have some critics of their own and ddf (Denis Duckfat) is one of them. He has notoriously trolled video game forums including the Wired Magazine Blogs to spread his dislike of Penny Arcade. In doing so, he also provided the basis for their national ad campaign for the game and one of the funniest headlines in recent memory. I think many companies can learn a thing or two here about getting the last laugh. Most companies are extremely afraid of opening themselves up to criticism on the internet.

ddf, I wish we could see your face when you read those banners.

Andrew Fontana 

This month's GameInformer cover story is a preview of Guitar Hero IV, and it looks like Activision and Neversoft are pulling out all the stops...  I'll skip the new instruments, the more freedom in the gameplay, the many more songs. That's to be expected.  The real shift is not the new game, but the new game as a community platform.

This means a few things.  One is there's a focus on personalization.  In Guitar Hero IV, players will have fairly extensive avatar customization tools (care of the Tony Hawk franchise) along with guitar and drum customization.  Players can create an instantly recognizable band look - they'll just need to make sure they bring their game to match their style...  

But more interestingly, the game will include creation modes - Jam Mode and Advanced Studio mode which will allow more avid players to create and share their own songs.  

Now naturally the success of this will rely not just on how good the creation tools are but how creative and skillful the creators are.  But judging on the small group of Guitar Hero hackers that have jumped through hoops to create their own tracks already, there's at least a core group of aficionados looking to showcase their chops. While technology and legal restrictions will not allow for vocals, this does take the rock fantasy to a new level.

GH Tunes, the free song sharing service, will include user rankings, recent additions and the usual filters that will allow the cream to rise to the top.  Neversoft seems to get it - they don't seem to be employing a 'built it and they will come' mentality. They plan on creating their own Showcase on GH Tunes, featuring both community composers of their selection along side compositions from professional acts.

On a related note, the Rock Band, Guitar Hero and SingStar franchises are racking up millions of song downloads.  A mere drop in the bucket against iTunes billions, but with Guitar Hero's putting their toes in GarageBand's waters, I wonder what the folks down in Cupertino think of the competition.

David Lewis

PMOG is a Passively Multiplayer Online Game. This game allows you to leave traps or gifts on any web page. You can also take missions across the internet, discovering new content while leveling up.

To play, you need to use Firefox and add the PMOG extension.

The really interesting opportunity with a game like this is the viral marketing opportunity of using a game like this for commercial uses. Think of a brand that is using the digital space well with many varied properties and experiences using this type experience to drive potential customers
across their sites!

http://pmog.com/

Baron Conway

The run up to the launch of GTA IV has garnered its usual share of press. (Most of the mainstream press, as usual, covers the various conservative groups that see it as a sign of the apocalypse, an instigator of violence, a destroyer of young minds.)  But I digress.  In addition to creating a well-reviewed game, Rockstar has done a good job of creating buzz that goes beyond the usual 'what about the children?' variety. 

A week or so ago it was revealed that Ricky Gervais makes an in-game cameo, doing 3 minutes of original stand-up material in a Liberty City nightclub.  They went all out on that one, apparently, including getting Mr. Gervais to don a mo-cap suit to increase the realism of his in-game appearance.  
 
Fair enough, celebrities - been done.  Videogames ruining the nation's youth - been done. (Though GTA probably holds the prize for specific mentions there).
 
But on a different tack, Rockstar and IGN have teamed up with Google Maps to deliver a different view on the game.  It allows gamers to add markers to a Liberty City map and add commentary and ratings of attributes like "difficulty", "fun factor" , "time it took" and "fight club".   I'm wondering if this is a one-off or if they'll take it the next logical step and add "street view" capabilities.

David Lewis