make meaning
I helped out a friend to create some buzz with his new company and a new product they had been working on. Their launch was a success with thousands of unique visitors and close to 30k visits. Pyry has now put together a little guide for other entrepreneurs on the learnings of the project.
Read his post to learn more.
…well sort of. Joi has received his Visa with the World of Warcraft graphics. Philip Torrene of Make blogged about this a year ago.
It’s a smart move from Visa as these guys are subscribers and pay monthly to World of Warcraft. Furthemore, it’s not just a small geeky bunch of players – they’re 8,5 million people who subscribe on a monthly basis to WOW membership. Nice, very nice.
Guardian has a nice article on an interview with Rob Small, the CEO of Miniclip. Miniclip has 34 million users and has been profitable for the last five years. Rob enlightens readers with his ideas and views on the casual gaming industry. Looks interesting, especially when we’re sort of competing from the same users.
However, I’d like to point out that even though their growth has been viral and word of mouth, they mainly target and “acquire” 10 to 24-year olds. This is quite young, especially when you look at recent studies of the casual gamer demographics. It’s also notable that the older the targeted users, the more dispensible money they have – which naturally makes the older bunch a lot more attractive.
During the last few nights I’ve been exploring Second Life a bit more. It was quite fascinating going back and explore it in more detail and smoothly than before (graphics wise). It still requires quite a bit of machine power and is still very nudgy with an Intel Dual core processor and a proper graphics card.
I’m a bit divided on my opinion still. It’s definitely a platform bound to get huge growth, however before the masses arrive SL needs to do a lot of UI design for the average John Doe. There are still too many features and small illogicalities that got me wondering where to go and how to change certain options. One of the most options uses of second life is a meeting place for communities to hold events between their users. It’s still a bit of a wild wild west with casinos and free commerce roaming everywhere which probably does not appeal to the masses as much. You can consider it a bit like the internet in it’s early days.
I’m definitely going to continue exploring it and building a presence there. Not just sure when – whether this week or later in the year…
ps. Another “BIG” virtual world, Project Entropia, is selling banking licences at the moment… read more here.
The market for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) in the West is now worth more than $1bn (£511m). BBC has the news.
Update: eMarketer has more info on in-game advertising in MMOGs. Link.