TriplePoint PR

It’s not uncommon to get a journalist’s perspective – after all, they’re paid to write down their thoughts, feelings and opinions. In the case of most game journalists, their primary task is to let the game-loving public know which titles are worth playing, in what boils down to a glorified “Buy It, Rent It, Skip It” rating scale. But last night on the NYU campus, a few prominent game journalists discussed their craft itself as part of the Game Center lecture series. Stephen Totilo of Kotaku, Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra and Jamin Brophy-Warren of Kill Screen (a new gaming print publication, gasp!) gave their take on a variety of highbrow video game topics like gender, violence and the death of print.

With every move you make, a chemical called dopamine sends a message to your brain to tell your muscles to function. When the dopamine supply is seriously depleted, messages cannot be transmitted efficiently, and the body cannot respond as easily. Imagine having your supply of dopamine cut down by eighty percent. That’s Parkinson’s disease (PD). With a bevy of medications available to deal with both physical and cognitive symptoms, the real challenge is finding non-pharmaceutical forms of relief.

Fortunately, good doctors prescribe exercise as seriously as they do drugs. A study at the University of Pittsburgh found that an exercise regimen slowed down the degeneration of nerve cells in rats with PD. Research is now occurring to find concrete evidence that this benefit also applies to humans.

Fishing.  One may call it a sport.  Another may call it a hobby.  Regardless of how it may be classifed, fishing is an activity that requires great patience, dedication, and knowledge of  the creatures one is in pursuit of and the environment which they inhabit.

Perhaps a deceased master of management practices does not serve as the ideal fishing companion, but this past weekend, the late Peter Drucker tagged along in spirit on my initial fishing endeavor of the 2010 season.  The first official weekend of spring presented a prime opportunity to gather my fishing rod and head down to the lake in hopes of snagging the big one.

After baiting my hook and casting my line, I sat on the dock of Carnegie Lake and perused through the 392 pages of Drucker’s 1954 TriplePoint cult classic, The Practice of Management.  Having spent a larger portion of the past few weeks reading and digesting the book (I am not alone), I searched for anything particularly motivating as I waited for signs of life to surface from the vast body of water that lay in front of me.

Players of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games have long known that working cooperatively and competitively within the game space has improved not only their leet gaming skillz but also real life abilities, including leadership, communication skills, creative thinking and adaptability. Lee Sheldon, assistant professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University, has taken the use of MMO design and terminology to the next level and applied it to his classroom education.

Referenced by Professor Jesse Schell in his talk at DICE, Sheldon has applied basic elements of MMOs to his classroom, including forming guilds (small groups within the classroom), quests (activities and projects – both “solo” and “guild” based), offering “Boss battles” (exams), and using XP points instead of grades. While the media has focused mostly on Sheldon’s use of a non-traditional grading system, they’re missing the bigger picture.

The New York Gaming Meetup is a monthly networking event for professionals in the game industry in and around New York City. Now in it’s second year of existence, the NY Gaming Meetup has featured a wide variety of demos from up-and-coming start-ups like regular presenter Miharo Games to some of the most successful NY-area tech companies in recent memory, such as Foursquare.

At the meetup this past Monday, the theme was mobile gaming. With a guest list of roughly 95 developers, investors, CEOs, marketers, journalists and industry aspirants, March was one of the group’s best months ever.

As bi-coastal members of the games industry, we were able to take some of the trends we saw out at GDC10 last week in San Francisco and apply those lessons to the demos and ideas shared at the NY Meetup. The #1 trend in mobile gaming that we took notice of is “app discovery.”

Like many of the people who’ve found their way into the video games industry, I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can recall. I have incredibly fond memories of playing Duck Tales on the NES at a friend’s house, staring at the black-on-green screen of my original Game Boy for endless hours on long car trips, and spending lazy summer afternoons exploring every nook and cranny of Super Mario World and Mega Man X.

In the last year or so, I’ve found myself turning back to these memories more and more often, largely because the entire industry seems to be doing the same thing. Hundreds of classic games have already been repurposed for XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare, and a number of new titles seem to be pulling their design inspirations directly from the late 80’s and early 90’s. Heck, both Mega Man 9 and 10 pull their graphics directly from that era.

Prepare for trouble and make it double! March 14, 2010 was the launch date of the new Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver games on Nintendo DS, remakes of the 1999 original Gold and Silver games on Game Boy Color. For those who thought ahead of time and had a Reservation Card, Target was giving away gift cards per game, as well as Lugia and Ho-oh collectible figurines. For once daylight-saving time was actually welcomed in my home, as it meant I would get to play the new games one hour earlier. After several hours of anticipation and strategic decision making (“I’ll buy Gold if you let me play your Silver later…”), I finally had a copy in my very own hands. Pokémon HeartGold was my game choice and I am happy to say that it combines old-school Pokémon antics with some updated adventures. 
 

[UPDATE - IGN's editors weigh in on the PlayStation Move.]

Advances in hardware technology are encouraging gamers to get off the couch, but do the games actually warrant the price of admission (and broken lamps)? New gesture-based controls for Microsoft and Sony are novel, but in order to be truly innovative they have to benefit the gameplay. Otherwise these features will quickly be written off as tacky add-ons designed by marketing experts to keep consumers jonesing for the “next big thing.”

While the Media Monkeys and their Junky Junkies will laud praise upon Silicon Valley developers, they’ve been missing out on the development of two of the most original and fascinating indie games of the year. Both of them were developed on the same street – the Pilestræde in Copenhagen, mere steps from the tourist haven of Nyhavn.

Max and the Magic Marker and LIMBO cleaned up at the IGF, with Max grabbing the D2D Vision Award and LIMBO sweeping both the Excellent in Visual Art and Technical Excellence awards.

Two fun facts about the developers:
1) Press Play (Max and the Magic Marker) and PlayDead (LIMBO) shared a table at the IGF awards.

2)  Press Play and PlayDead are separated by nothing but a floor in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Bolt Creative’s iPhone game, Pocket God, is one of the most successful games in the App Store. They have sold over 2 million units in a little over one year. Furthermore, the game has accumulated a loyal fan base—an impressive feat that many games never achieve. Bolt Creative’s success in building a strong following can be credited, in part, to their genuine appreciation of and attentiveness to the Pocket God community.

When the game was new to the scene, Bolt Creative CEO, Dave Castelnuovo, would check out fan comments and gather real feedback. He made sure that players who spent $0.99 to download Pocket God knew that their voices were being heard and that their comments would be taken into account by responding to both praise and criticism. It is important to offer fans a communication channel to share their opinions. Now there is an array of useful tools available to monitor and manage comments on various social network sites so that it is easier. Castelnuovo recommends, however, having a presence on a limited selection of social networking sites rather than trying to be everywhere. He suggests choosing a format that suits your strengths and focusing your energy there, specifically.

Out in the vast desert of Las Vegas, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences® (AIAS) hosted the 2010 D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit and the 13th annual Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony, and the TriplePoint team was in attendence. Julia Roether, Joe Ziemer and I joined in the event to learn from video game industry leaders, connect with likeminded individuals…..and enjoy that dry, ultra dehydrating weather that only Las Vegas can provide. Overall, we found that the D.I.C.E. Summit is a can’t miss event with informative and thought-provoking discussions from seasoned industry professionals, and we’ve included some of our key findings from the summit below.

Continuing our efforts to engage in real discussions with the leading members of the gaming industry and beyond,  TriplePoint recently had the opportunity to chat with IGN’s on-camera host and staff writer, Jessica Chobot.  Since 2005, Jessica has become a key influencer within the gaming community and we were fortunate to talk with Jessica on her quick rise at IGN, social media, and oh yeah, the infamous PSP photo.

TP:  How did you find yourself in your current roles at IGN and Maxim?

JC: How I got my spot here at IGN is a long and intricate story, so I’ll give you the semi-quick version. I was going through a quarter-life crisis and working as a model for quick pocket money and at EB Games for discounts. I had pre-ordered a PSP and the day it was released was the same day I had a photo shoot. On the way to the shoot, I stopped by EB to pick up the PSP, took it with me to the studio and during a break, showed it off to everyone and was screwing around and taking goofy pictures. One ended up being the “PSP lick” picture.

Now that Facebook apps can no longer send notifications to users, social game developers are implementing new methods of keeping in touch with their players. Here’s an overview of recent game updates from a few top social titles, as reported on FriskyMongoose.com.

First, in case you’ve been under a rock, the background: Facebook notifications will cease to exist in their previous form, starting this week. According to Mashable, developers of games and other Facebook apps will now be required to either send email updates to users (assuming they’ve agreed to receive them), or hope that users will read about their updates via fan pages and new feeds.

An additional counter feature will also be relied on, which displays the number of app related notices you have next to the application’s name in your left menu navigation on the Facebook homepage (for those applications you have bookmarked). However this is as close to universal notifications as the updated system comes, making those who were tired of logging in to see a big 20+ digit in the corner of their screens very happy campers indeed.

One of the most popular new features is an email alert system. Facebook games are rewarding players who register with all kinds of exclusive in-game items, like new recipes, shells and armor.

More than a year after its initial launch, Pocket God continues to top the App Store charts with over two million copies sold. Bolt Creative’s Dave Castelnuovo and Allen Dye keep the craze, well, crazy, through clever content updates, community engagement and tons of humor.

The benevolent deities on the PR team help keep Pocket God‘s name in lights through quality media hits. Here’s a recap of the latest and greatest:

Bloomberg TV
Venture CES Edition – Broadcast and Online (1/22)
Dave Castelnuovo speaks on the Pocket God demographic, pricing strategy and the future of the brand.

NBC’s “press:here”
Episode 42, Part 2 – Broadcast and Online (1/31)
Dave joins the weekly Silicon Valley news roundtable to discuss app development and the iPad.