SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Advertising can be entertaining and personally meaningful when it’s done well. Adverblog has a bit about the Prototype Experience, a site created by Belgian agency One Million Dollars that functions both as an ad and as a trailer.

It asks that you enter your Facebook login, then proceeds to creep you out by integrating key elements of what it scrapes from your profile into scenes from the game’s urban dystopia. The result is so personalized that you’re immediately drawn into the world developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Activision.

This is a good example of how to use personal data. It asks permission first, and it offers something in return. It’s also extremely relevant to the product, in this case a game that toys with notions of identity and physical realities.

Prototype also has a related comic book from DC Comics: written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti; art and cover by Darick Robertson and Matt Jacobs; with a variant cover by Jim Lee.

(Title lyric from Sepultura.)

Even in the unlikely event you’re not interested in the game itself, the cinematic for The Beatles: Rock Band is well worth watching – here it is (pictured, too).

Amidst all the hoopla, there was one thing in the announcement at Microsoft‘s E3 press conference today that I don’t think got enough press. “All You Need Is Love” will be released on 9/9/09 – simultaneously with the game – exclusively as a downloadable song through Xbox Live, with all Apple Corps Ltd, MTV Games and Microsoft proceeds benefiting Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. Wondering about that careful wording of donors, by the way? I counted more than a dozen corporate logos representing the companies who have a legal and financial stake in this game.

(Title lyric by Lennon/McCartney.)

Now you can practice skateboarding without visiting the emergency room. At E3, Activision and its partners will be unveiling Tony Hawk: Ride, a game plus a skateboard simulator/controller that lets you become at one with the action on the screen. Built-in accelerometers, motion sensors, light sensors and other fun technologies respond to whatever you do, so the peripheral can tell if you’re simply riding forward along the street or attempting the most ambitious tricks. Kotaku has extensive coverage.

Robomodo is making the controller for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and a Wii version is promised. Online competitions will be part of the fun too. No price has been announced but analysts expect it to be in the same under-$100 range as the Wii Fit.

Tony Hawk is a true pioneer in personal branding, by the way. Anyone interested in that whole area really should examine him as a case study in how to do it property.

(Title lyric from Suicidal Tendencies.)

Microsoft is winning the battle for the living room, according to this article from Silicon Valley Insider. More than a million people who already own an Xbox 360 are using it instead of DVDs to stream movies from their Netflix subscriptions. That same capability is now being added to Windows Media Center, which is built in to most versions of the much derided but omnipresent Windows Vista.

(Thanks to Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, for drawing my attention to the article.)

Most Xbox 360 users already know about the growing library of TV programs, trailers, movies and other content available through the Xbox Live Marketplace (in addition to games, of course).  What surprises me about this isn’t really how many households are getting their entertainment this way, it’s the fact that most entertainment executives don’t believe this type of setup is in the mainstream.

(Title lyric by Brian Wilson.)

NCSoft’s MMO City of Heroes is dealing with a conundrum that will become increasingly common. Its 14th expansion is called Mission Architect, a feature that lets players take their in-game characters into a subsidiary world where they can create and play their own adventures. Social networking and rating tools are part of it, too. Joe Morrissey of the City of Heroes team wrote an essay for Gamasutra about how they’re trying to manage this feature without publishing inappropriate user-created content. A highly recommended read. [Title lyric by Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Bob Ezrin and Lou Reed.]

This year’s Game Developers Choice Awards will include two special awards being given to very worthy recipients.

The Pioneer Award will go to Harmonix co-founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, whose most recent achievement is the world-changing Guitar Hero and Rock Band game franchises. It’s been fascinating to watch how Harmonix took the revolutionary ideas they came up with for Frequency and Amplitude and turned them into blockbuster mainstream entertainment.

The Ambassador Award will get taken home by the ever-charming composer Tommy Tallarico, co-founder of the Video Games Live concert series and founder of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), in recognition of his tireless work to advance appreciation for the music in games.
Anyone going to the Game Developers Conference can join in the festivities on Wednesday, March 25th in the Esplanade Room in the South Hall of San Francisco’s Moscone Center. (Title lyric from the Donnas.)

As we commemorate the new president the new president and avert our eyes from some stupendously kitchy souvenirs, some people are grabbing what they perceive to be a marketing opportunity.

Attempting to be heard above the clamor of Obama’s inauguration was the launch Commander in Chief, a game developed by Eversim, published by IGS, and distributed in North America by Atari. It’s a multiplayer sim game in which players control things including the economy, the military, national security and terrorism, natural disasters, and alternative energy sources. Players are equipped with actual geo-political information on 400 key factors in 192 countries provided by 50 international organizations including the United Nations, G7, NATO, NAFTA and OPEC.

New York State legislators are discussing whether or not to accept Governor Paterson’s proposal to tax many different types of entertainment as part of his efforts to raise money. The New York Daily News seems to have been first with the story, describing the budget as “a host” of new fees and small taxes in lieu of income tax increases. MMOs, Sirius XM radio, Rhapsody subscriptions and just about everything else you do for fun are covered.

To quote the Executive Briefing itself, the Governor’s recommendations include what is becoming known as “the iPod tax” – in government-speak, “state and local sales tax on purchases of prewritten software, digital audio, audio-visual and text files, digital photographs, games, and other electronically delivered entertainment services.” The Governor euphemistically says this will “close the digital property taxation loophole.” He also wants to tax “entertainment-related consumer spending, including but not limited to, movie theaters and sporting events” and “television and radio services provided by cable, satellite or other similar means.” You can read the entire budget presentation here.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 firmware upgrade 2.53 finally made its public appearance, and among other things it lets users watch full-screen Flash video. If you don’t realize why you should care, consider the potential for using the PS3 to enjoy entertainment beyond games. The console already is hooked up to the Internet and a TV, and now it’s possible to watch Hulu and YouTube in noticeably better quality than before. So how much longer do I have to wait before I can get Flash on my phone? (Via Electronista, CNet and lots of other places.)

Waste a few minutes checking out Subzero’s online album of 35 humorous screenshots from Halo 3. But then consider how smart developer Bungie was to include grabbing, recording and uploading capabilities in the game along with an online place for fans to share them. The game earned $300 million in its first week of release because it’s a great franchise, but thinking like this helps keep it such a strong place in popular culture.

Speaking of which, Dr. Pepper will have a gamer on the label of about 175 million 20-ounce bottles from January to April. Halo 3 player Tsquared, known to his family as Tom Taylor, has a three-year$250,000 contract with Major League Gaming.