TriplePoint PR

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend E3, the largest gaming event of the year and an indicator not only of the current health of the industry, but of the technology that will carry it through the next year. 2009 was a show of rebirth for a conference traditionally mired in spectacle and hype. Stepping into this year’s event after the previous two was like stepping off of an airplane, the pressure dropping around me, and the atmosphere felt as justifying as it did celebratory - once again E3 was about the fun and excitement of being a gamer. And the first step to getting gamers excited at E3 is to know how to communicate with them.

Now that E3 is back to its former glory, it is once again a battle for hype between the three biggest companies: Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. “Winning” E3 requires more than just showing incredible technology – there’s nothing BUT incredible technology at E3 – it takes a great presentation of that technology to build maximum anticipation, and doing that requires a great public relations strategy.

Continue reading Playing the Public Relations Game at E3

While tennis pros battled it out in London this past weekend, the real athletes could be found at Wiimbledon 2009 on Saturday at Barcade in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Competition was fierce at the 3rd annual Wiimbledon, the world’s largest competitive Wii tennis tournament, where over 100 Wii-athletes and spectators came to compete on the virtual courts of Wii tennis.

This entrant, pictured below, not only won the overall tournament, but also took home the prize of “Best Costume”.

Tournament Champion/Best Dressed

The real winners are the children served by Child’s Play, a unique charitable organization that improves the quality of life for sick and terminally-ill children in hospitals by providing them with entertainment, such as toys, games, and books.

The event, co-sponsored by Nyko Technologies, was a gritty field test for their new Wii controller, the Nyko Wand, which was dubbed “The Official Racket of Wiimbledon”. Needless to say, the Wand “aced” the test.

This year’s tournament was co-organized by the gentlemen at Crunchgear.

To view an album of photos from the event, click here.

Step away from your farm, restaurant or jewels for a few minutes for a quick overview of the Social Gaming Summit through the top terms of the day:

Virality and the “viral loop” – Virality, or the ability of something to grow virally, is a critical factor in the success of a social game. In a few words, the viral loop refers to the cycle of growth created by friends inviting their friends to check something out, and those friends converting and then inviting more of their friends. Virality has the potential to create non-linear growth for a user base, and discounts the customer acquisition cost, so unsurprisingly it came up frequently throughout the event. There were some interesting discussions about the difference between virality designed to be a customer acquisition tool (“mechanical virality”), and virality that emerges from good old fashioned enjoyment of a game, and the resulting word-of-mouth support. In other words, it’s the difference between incentivizing users with in-game rewards for inviting friends to play, versus users loving a game and naturally wanting to encourage their friends to play with them. Are players acquired through mechanical virality valuable? There are many questions here, but it seems that everyone agrees that word of mouth virality lacks the playbook of mechanical virality and is much harder to achieve.

Facebook Connect – Though this is not a new offering, it remains a hot topic. Facebook Connect enables users to take their online identity with them all over the web, onto gaming consoles such as the Xbox 360, and to the iPhone. What does this mean for social game developers? It means that players can interact with games designed for Facebook (a great platform in terms of virality) across multiple platforms - extending and deepening the experience. It’s doubtful that everyone wants their real identity tied to all of their gaming identities, but that’s a discussion for another time…

Social graph – Your ever-expanding network of relationships with friends (and not-quite friends), your “social graph,” enables and defines the social gaming experience. The social graph makes social games fun and enables virality. And it goes both ways: social games can strengthen your social graph by creating new experiences beyond “poking” and staring at photos of your ex-roommate’s cousin’s dog.

Fun – Games should be fun, and more than any design considerations born from number crunching, it is fun that makes people – and their friends – want to play a game. PlayFish CEO Sebastien de Halleux noted that their key metric is whether or not the entire company can’t stop playing a game. This remark was referenced throughout the rest of the conference and served as a great reminder of what games should be all about (fun).

An estimated 34 million mothers go online monthly. They are now among the savviest internet users be it for getting their news, shopping, and making the purchasing decisions for their families or personal blogs. Moms are turning to the web to network with other moms, share stories about parenting, their kids, and life in general via their blogs and twitter. Many of them becoming influential among their peers – other mommies. Brands like Nintendo, Campbell’s, Hallmark, and Frigidaire just to name a few, have been tapping the mommy blogs to reach one of the most important consumers out there - the financial decision making woman we all know and love as mom.  

EA has recently tapped into the mommy blog community to promote their new title, EA Active, placing these women on a 30 day weight loss challenge - http://www.hotmomreviews.com/?p=142. That is just an example of one of the many blogs participating. Chevy sponsors the “Mom Squad” - test drive Chevy’s Traverse and enter for a chance to win 1-hour massage session - http://mommymadnessdfw.com/massageenvy_dfw.html. Frigidaire has “Frigidaire  Moms” who get to try out their newest line of products and talk about it. There are five teams, each of groups of 10 mommy blogs. Wal-Mart has the Elevenmoms (there’s actually 21 mommy bloggers who are part of this group) who share ideas for saving money, living green, host a YouTube show and much more on behalf of Wal-Mart.

eMarketer recently published studies with notable information and stats for companies trying to reach moms: 

1. More than one-half (53%) of the US female Internet population of 79 million actively participated in some type of social media at least weekly. Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs.

2. A survey by Razorfish and CafeMom found that Websites, referrals from friends and family, and information from search engines were the most common sources online moms used to make a purchasing decision. They were less likely to use TV, magazines, newspapers or radio to make their purchasing decisions.

3. Women are so enthusiastic about reading and writing blogs, they are stealing time from other media to spend more in the blogosphere and on social network sites.

Next month the mommy’s are off to the Blogher Convention in Chicago, which has been sold out for the four months now. They not only see this as a learning workshop, but also as an opportunity to meet up with their ILF (internet life friends). As of May 16, 2009, more than 51,000 members have listed over 22,000 blogs by women, organized by topic, and that number is expected to continue rising.

At this year’s Electronics and Entertainment Expo, Paradox Interactive held a powerful presence, showcasing three of its upcoming PC Strategy titles, East India Company, Hearts of Iron III, and Majesty 2.

All three titles made a lasting impression on media and fan attendees alike, and were nominated for “Best of E3” Awards from multiple outlets.

Of particular highlight, IGN nominated both East India Company and Hearts of Iron III as “Best Strategy Game” contenders. The readers of Voodoo Extreme also found a great deal to look forward to in these upcoming titles, nominating all three for the “Best PC Strategy Award” in the site’s E3 2009 “Reader’s Choice Awards”.

Unfortunately, only one title could win, but Paradox Interactive was happy to take home the award for East India Company.

With a great amount of momentum coming out of E3 2009, Paradox Interactive looks forward to satisfying PC fans soon with the releases of these highly-recognized titles! The wait won’t be long, as East India Company will release on July 28, with Hearts of Iron III shortly following on August 4^th.