Samsung could gain even more influence over Android with its new Chillingo partnership. The two are offering developers 100 percent of revenues for titles sold in the Samsung Apps store. Read more »
Social media technologies continue to permeate marketing and enterprise collaboration, even if investors felt let down in the third quarter by their consumer-facing businesses like Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga. So B2B technology offerings in support of marketing and collaboration will soon steal all the social tech attention. This quarterly wrap-up analyzes these events, and provides a near-term outlook for trends, technologies and companies to watch in the next 18 to 24 months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Electronic Arts has survived in the cut-throat gaming business since 1982. And it plans to keep its console games alive while diverting resources to the fast growing mobile and social gaming world, company senior vice president Nick Earl said today. Read more »
Anecdotal evidence suggests over-the-top video is a booming trend. But it takes technical skill, state-of-the-art broadband connections and the willingness to shell out money for both bandwidth and content subscriptions to fully integrate OTT into a household, much less consider trying to use it to cord cut. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Social virtual goods revenues will grow from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $4.1 billion in 2016. Leading this growth are disruptive factors such as mobile, regulatory changes and alternatives to the traditional OS. But the most important disruption vector will be increasing the universality of virtual currencies. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling moved his video game company 38 Studios to Rhode Island in 2010, the decision was not just a snub… Read more at paidContent »
Walk into the offices of most technology startups, and you’ll see lots of open space, lots of desks and lots of programmers hacking away at code. Walk into the office of a startup that’s creating physical products, and it’s a different experience. Read more »
Codecademy, which teaches users how to program for free with an interactive and social web application, has garnered more than 1 million users in less than five months. We talked to co-founder and CEO Zach Sims about how Codecademy started and where it’s going. Read more »
Social gaming company 6waves Lolapps (which is now going by the shortened moniker “6L”) is continuing its stated quest to take on industry leader Zynga. The company is announcing Wednesday the acquisition of Escalation Studios, a Dallas, Texas-based mobile game company. Read more »
Games rank as the most popular form of mobile content today — 68 percent of tablet and smartphone app users who downloaded an app in the pa… Read more at paidContent »
In a new lawsuit, Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) says free speech rights permit it to use brand name helicopters in the hit game Battlefield 3… Read more at paidContent »
Apple might be looking to expand its live sports offerings through a deal with the English Premier League, a new report says. It’s an interesting proposition but not a cheap one: Sky paid £1.6 billion (around $2.5 billion) for its current broadcast rights. Read more »
Traditionally, the Mac has made up an extremely small sliver of corporate PC purchases, but over the last few quarters, more and more of them have been incorporated into the workplace. And on the heels of this trend was an announcement from the analysts over at ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Some research out from Xyologic today on app store download trends in 2011 indicates that while games have remained a popular category acros… Read more at paidContent »
Video gamers and Star Wars fans are a match made in heaven, but can they justify the development of what may be the most expensive video game in history? According to new data from Electronic Arts, “Star Wars, The Old Republic” will be a blockbuster. Read more »
It has become something of a meme that young kids take to smartphones and tablets like fish to water. Today sees a development that could fo… Read more at paidContent »
During the three-day outage last week that affected data services for millions of BlackBerry users, RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) executives were focused… Read more at paidContent »
Many fans say college sports are about the game and not the money. One New Jersey judge appears to agree, ruling that Electronic Arts (NSDQ:… Read more at paidContent »
Social games and app developers got a bit of a shock when Facebook snuck out some Platform Policy changes. So what can an app developer do to get the most out of Facebook and insulate itself as much as possible from Facebook changes? Build its own ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Electronic Arts announced it is buying casual and mobile game developer PopCap Games for $750 million as it looks to speed up its evolution toward being a digital purveyor of games. EA is moving quickly away to embrace the opportunity in social and mobile gaming. Read more »
Zynga is ramping up its mobile efforts as it prepares for its IPO. Here are a few key strategies the social gaming company should pursue as it prepares to take on established developers in the fast-moving world of mobile gaming. Read more »
Last week Google showed off its progress on Chrome OS. It introduced an apps store in support of it, and offered up a pre-release hardware trial program as a concession that real machines wouldn’t ship till mid 2011. But it’s likely all for naught. Google CEO ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Samsung’s Bada is only a few months old, but already the operating system is accruing substantial market share. If the Korean manufacturer can overcome several key challenges, Bada could become a major worldwide mobile platform to compete with iOS and the increasingly fragmented Android ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The tech industry has a new favorite sport: guessing who Apple will buy with its $50 billion-plus cash hoard. Since October 18, when Steve Jobs mentioned the company was keeping its powder dry for possible deals, speculation over potential Apple acquisitions has run rampant and even ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Electronic Arts bought UK mobile game publisher Chillingo, which distributes the break-out hit Angry Birds. The deal, rumored to be worth $20 million, comes almost a year after EA bought Playfish for $400 million and extends EA’s move into more social and mobile games. Read more »
The iTunes App Store has more than 250,000 active apps for sale. How will you get yours get noticed? After you’ve spent significant time and resources on developing and releasing it, you can’t simply wait for it to be “discovered.” In today’s crowded marketplace, you need a strategic and savvy marketing approach to sell your app — or you risk it getting lost in an ever-expanding deluge of sub-par offerings. Navigating the nuances of app marketing involves many steps, from knowing the finer points of search engine optimization to understanding Apple’s ranking policies and how to use social networks to your advantage. This guide offers strategies for all of those topics and countless others, including app design; choosing a release date; Facebook, Twitter and YouTube marketing ideas; what makes or breaks a press release; and tips on how to win the approval of the ever-influential app blogger. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the data landscape changes, so must the databases used to gather, store and analyze the rich information within them. Consumer-facing Internet companies are able to scale by using NoSQL data stores, and CIOs can learn from what’s worked for hugely successful web sites. Here, we offer a number of recommendations for enterprise decision makers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon, perhaps driven by the forthcoming launch of Apple’s tablet style computer is turning its Kindle device into a platform. The Seattle-based online retailer today announced that it will allow software developers to build, upload and distribute active content (aka apps) from its Kindle Store. Read more »
Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello spoke with FOX Business Network’s Liz Claman today about Tiger’s relationship with the company and his private life, saying it’s “private” and he can’t do anything but “stand by” him. EA has made nearly $500 million selling its Tiger Woods game. Read more »
Social games — a subset of the gaming industry that offers simple games that run across various social networks — today received what is the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from Electronic Arts, the $4.2 billion-a-year gaming giant. EA today snapped up Playfish, […] Read more »
In recent years, virtual worlds (also known as massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs) have shown tremendous growth in terms of user numbers and revenue. However, the market for them is currently in tremendous flux, with the most well-known sub-genre — the subscriber-based fantasy role playing games (MMORPGs) — suffering a growth plateau, due to the dominating success of World of Warcraft. At the same time, user activity in “freemium” virtual worlds continues to explode, most especially in the tween/adolescent market, which is likely to reach a market saturation point soon, though monetization prospects for all but the established players remain uncertain. The explosion of social networks, which share numerous traits with virtual worlds, have created a new potential audience for this genre, while the mass adoption of web plug-ins and smartphones like the iPhone have opened up new markets for the genre.
In this transitional period, many of the best investment and growth opportunities to watch are not the worlds themselves, but the solution providers offering developers the means to better monetize their existing MMOs. Opportunities also exist in niche MMOs that appeal to consumers seeking entertainment outside the established fantasy and kids social MMO space. However, new players that would enter this already crowded market must foster a community of users by rewarding user-created content and continued engagement, while also being architected with multiple revenue streams and play platforms. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
We’re playing more online games than ever before, but we’re paying less for them, interactive marketing firm Future Ads said today. Of the 8,000 online casual gamers surveyed by the company this spring, 61 percent reported gaming more than last year, while nearly 80 percent of […] Read more »
Apple arguably could do a better job of educating their non–tech oriented customers about the advisability and desirability of periodic software — especially OS version — upgrades. That epiphany dawned on me during a telephone conversation last weekend with a friend I don’t see or talk […] Read more »
Last year, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello told The Wall Street Journal that his company was “boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play.” Prophetic words, though no one was listening at EA. In early December, EA said it was […] Read more »
Yes, the “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise is in fact an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team. Read more »
This is either a brilliant Photoshop job, some canny viral political campaigning, or both: An Xbox 360 gamer playing Burnout Paradise spotted an Obama campaign billboard with a “Paid for by Obama for President” caption as he whizzed by in his turbocharged sports car, Game Politics […] Read more »
Mythic Entertainment, the studio that developed Electronic Arts’ new MMORPG Warhammer Online, has adopted an extreme anti-gold selling policy. But much as gamers claim to hate gold sellers, almost one in four patronize them — Mythic, therefore, is risking alienating a quarter of its user base. Read more »
I finally understand why Spore has been delayed for so long. Originally expected for a 2007 release, the simulated evolution game from Electronic Arts (ERTS) studio Maxis was suddenly withheld, much to EA’s chagrin. Maxis head Will Wright explained the delay, saying that the company wanted […] Read more »
Last summer we wondered where the games for the iPhone were. Now we know they’re coming, in a big way. Apple last week showed off the details of its SDK, with VP Scott Forstall promoting it as “a great platform to develop games on.” Just as […] Read more »
