2. March UPDATE GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // After a long, long winter, the sun is finally hitting the streets and parks of Copenhagen. Time to see what this spring is bringing in gaming. From social birds to augmented reality, there’s a fresh breeze in the air in all corners of the gaming world. So take off that big scarf, turn the heater down and have a look at what happened in March!
3. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // FASHION WORLD LIVE //SOCIAL GAMING IN STYLE Combine fashion and gaming and you’re bound to end up somewhere in Scandinavia. Norwegian game developer Funcom, media company IMG (US) and publisher 505 Games (UK) put their super-stylish powers together to bring the next generation virtual fashion world to life. What does that look like? We don’t really know yet… Seems like we’ll have to wait until September when the application launches on Facebook. According to FWL it will bring together millions of fashion fans to get involved with, and be part of, the ever-evolving rhythm and pulse of the fashion industry. It will be a new way to create, collaborate and communicate with your friends and other people in the FWL-network. But again… what does that look like? One thing’s for sure, you’ll have to choose your own fashion career path. If you always wanted to be a sweary designer, a Champagne-drinking model or a gossiping stylist, the time is now. You’ll be interacting with fashion brands, products and personalities and you’ll probably have to make your own creations and show them off to the world. Who knows, maybe the next big fashion name might blossom here. VIDEO www.fashionworldlive.com SOURCE: WWW.FASHIONWORLDLIVE.COM
4. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // SMITHSONIAN GAMING GALLERY //GAMES AS ART What kind of game would Salvador Dali have made if he was born a couple of decades later? We will never know, but chances are it would have been an amazing piece of art. Because yes, games can be art. We’ve said it before, but now the Smithsonian museum is backing up our claim. Which means we were right all along. A new exhibition - The Art of Video Games - will run between March and September next year and looks set to provide the ultimate fix for gaming art fetishists. Until then you get the chance to vote what will be on display. You can select your favorite games from a list of 240 games from the past 40 years. Jump from pixel-games to immense MMOs like you would go from Cubism to Expressionism. Tastes differ, but make sure to include good old Zelda in your vote, just to make us happy. www.americanart.si.edu SOURCE: WWW.AMERICANART.SI.EDU
5. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // SEX ON THE Wii //UBISOFT DARES You bought that Nintendo Wii for the kids, right? To work on the kid-parent bond by playing virtual tennis together. Well, it seems like this time around you want to keep your kids as far away as possible from the little white magic box. French developer Ubisoft is out to make you do things with your Wii you never imagined before. With their newly announced game ‘Dare’, you can now throw a very spicy party. Invite that friend with the hot spouse and try to look as innocent as possible when you try to ‘level-up’ together with him or her. Ubisoft’s ‘sexy party game’ lets you get to your secret crush with 40 fun and flirtatious games and 5 different mood settings (enchanting, persuasive, naughty, adventurous and brainy). The game is expected to land later this year and will eventually also come out on Playstation 3. Naughty Americans will be left out because the game will only be launched in Europe. But we are sure there are other ‘games’ out there for you… VIDEO www.ubi.com SOURCE: WWW.UBI.COM
6. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // DIGITAL MATHLETES //UNICEF COUNTS ON GAMING Who ever said gaming isn’t good for kids? On March 1 over one million kids around the globe participated in the biggest math game on earth. Held by UNICEF, the event to celebrate World Maths Day engaged kids from different countries to compete in 60-second digital math challenges. Real-time fun with numbers against boys and girls at the other end of the world – and all for charity. 1.3 million kids from 212 countries doing math at the same time must surely have generated some extra brainwaves in the air, especially in and around Malaysia, the winners of the Maths World Cup 2011. The funds raised will provide new schools and supplies for the neediest children around the world. And who knows, maybe one of those may just have the next Einstein waiting in the wings. That’s just how cool gaming is. Go mathletes! VIDEO www.worldmathsday.com
7. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // ANGRY BIRDS TO FACEBOOK //SOCIAL PIG SLAUGHTER Pig hunting season will get extended once more with the launch of Angry Birds for Facebook. The question is how developer Rovio will give a social twist to the incredibly popular game. And if they do, will it actually work? Facebook’s Director of Gaming Partnerships, Sean Ryan, said only a couple of months ago that Angry Birds wouldn’t make a lot of sense on Facebook. It wasn’t clear to him why you should build a single player game for his platform. But the guys at Rovio promise to come with completely new aspects that haven’t been experienced on other platforms yet. After amazing sales in the Apple app store, and over 30 million games sold for Android, yet another platform doesn’t seem like a big obstacle to tackle. But will the social Angry Birds be so tasty that it will beat Farmville for the top spot? At least they both have pigs in their game… www.rovio.com SOURCE: WWW.ROVIO.COM
8. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // FORGETTING THE WII //TIME FOR A NEW TOY A British study, covering 1,672 people aged 18 and over, revealed that 48% of Wii owners had not used their console in the past six months. For 41% time was the issue, 29% felt the novelty had worn off and another 22% was now playing Kinect or Playstation Move instead. Of the people who did use their Wii the past month, 39% admitted they only used the system for Wii Fit. Not really numbers to be proud of if you don’t only want to be remembered as another fitness hype. Remember Jane Fonda? Not great news for a device that changed the gaming landscape when it came out. But with the launch of Xbox’s and PlayStation’s impressive motion-controlled platforms the Japanese box is losing its shine. Nintendo is currently focusing on the launch of its 3DS, but a successor for the Wii is not too much to ask, is it?. After all, the console dates back to 2006. Was Justin Bieber even born back then? SOURCE: WWW.NINTENDO.COM
9. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // IPAD 2’s VIRTUAL MAGIC //LAUNCHING AUGMENTED REALITY Take a look at the new iPad. Does it blow your mind like the first one did? Probably not. But take a look underneath the hood and you’ll probably drop a jaw or two. Great processing speeds and beautiful graphics combined with both a front and a rear camera spells augmented reality magic. You’ve probably tried out one of those augmented reality games on your smartphone before (or looked over the shoulder of that cool colleague who you envy a bit). And while gazing at the small screen you wondered if one day we would have special lenses in our eyes which can overlay a layer on top of the real world. We are not quite there yet, but a big screen device like the new iPad is getting us a big step closer. And will that be the one big thing that will lead the iPad 2 to mobile heaven? With its new device, Apple is putting its tablet competitors in the shade for the next year or so. And what is more interesting for a mobile game developer than a single device that rules the market? Watch the videos to see what is possible already, and start dreaming of an augmented gaming future, because our prediction is that we are going to see a lot of cool iPad AR stuff coming up. VIDEO 1 VIDEO 2 SOURCE: WWW.APPLE.COM
10. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // YOUR ROBOT IN A GAME //A DIFFERENT KIND OF MARKETING Loved Terminator but always thought you could do better? Now is your chance! Boston-based game developer Demiurge Studios lets you create some dangerous robots for its Shoot Many Robots role playing game. The game will be a 4-player co-op evolving around a slightly drunk hillbilly who’s been stockpiling his RV with guns, ammo and beer awaiting the robot apocalypse. Sounds like that crazy old veteran from around the corner, right? Our drunk hillbilly will be mowing down hordes of robots and unlocking cool weapons along the way. And the cool thing is… your robot design might be the one that gets splattered to pieces! Sign up for the ‘Design Many Robots’ competition and your robot could end up in the game’s first downloadable content addition. On top of that you also win a trip to Demiurge Studios in Boston. We heard they have a great baseball team over there. But we might be wrong. No matter what, a great - and cheap - marketing effort for a game that might otherwise have passed by unnoticed. VIDEO www.shootmanyrobots.com SOURCE: WWW.SHOOTMANYROBOTS.COM
11. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // DISNEY BUYS HTML5 ENGINE START-UP //READY TO FLY INTO BROWSER SPACE If you own a toy or gaming company, watch out! Disney is launching itself full speed into the social and mobile universe with the acquisition of a new engine, an HTML5 engine to be precise. If you’re not a programmer or computer wizz, it’s a software system designed for the creation and development of video games in the latest and greatest internet language. Disney is now the proud owner of Rocket Pack, a bunch of Finnish brains who decided it was a good idea to make an integrated solution for plug-in-free browser game development (our guess is they were right). Rocket Pack is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company reporting to Disney Interactive Media Group, according to TechCrunch. So what does this mean for Disney? They will be able to develop browser games that don’t need flash or any plug-ins. This enables the company to run their games on mobile browsers without the need to use an app store. What would Steve say about that? Oh wait, doesn’t Steve own a part of Disney? VIDEO www.rocketpack.fi
12. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // SURVIVING THE GAMING WORLD //NO IN-BETWEEN If you are a developer and you have something to say, the Games Developer’s Conference in San Francisco is the place to say it. That is what Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski did this year, when stating that middling games are out. Just like in the movie world, where you need to make either a big event movie or an indie film to get people to the cinema. Or as Bleszinski put it: “The Other Guys starring Will Ferrell and Marky Mark? Nah, I'll F-ing rent that.” Moviegoers as well as gamers demand value. "We have a cautious consumer. There are so many articles about this right now. People are still smarting from the recession. People don't go to Target anymore and spend $200 randomly.” He might actually be right. With his own advice in mind, Bleszinski has nothing to worry about, his new Gears of War game will definitely not end up in the sale-pile any time soon. SOURCE: MICHAELTOMLI (WIKIPEDIA)
13. GAMING UPDATE // MARCH 2011 // THE 3DS AND AUGMENTED REALITY //OPENING A WHOLE DIFFERENT WORLD Words would not be good enough to describe it. Just watch the damn video all the way to the end!
