http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooY6Ns3KCg8

Ars Technica has gone on record to say that they feel that Resistance 2 is better than Gears of War 2, which is a bold statement. The highly popular technology portal said the following in their review:

Even though the game’s campaign is a bit dry, the competitive multiplayer action and the addictive co-op will keep this game disk in PS3s for some time to come. Guerrilla Games is going to be hard-pressed to top this with Killzone 2, set to be released in early 2009. We’re willing to go on record as saying that this game is better than Gears of War 2 in many ways, and could very well be the best shooter of the year. Source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc7OVSDTuYU

Its official: Resistance 2 is the best FPS the PS3 has to offer. The game is much bigger tan its predecessor,in fact it is much bigger than any other game in the market. Most games offer you a single player game with some multiplayer add-ons, here in Resistance 2 they took Multiplayer to a whole new level. There are multiplayer modes that let you compete in a 30 vs 30 game, and if that isn’t enough there is a separate co-op campaign that you can play online.

We absolutely love the multiplayer package that Resistance 2 has to offer, especially since out multiplayer experiences have been very smooth online, with little to no lag. Check out the video to see the multiplayer in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NzdixdTFLg

This is gaming season and there are games everywhere, but I aint complaining. I was at a gaming summit recently where they showed off Dead Space in a closed room on a huge projector and unbearably loud speakers. The game looked absolutely gorgeous on EA’s proprietary engine and was loud enough to spook anyone. The PS3 ran the game at 720p, without any frame-rate issues, which is reassuring for the 4 gamers in India, who play on projectors.

The most impressive aspect had to be the gameplay, the game has the ability to build enough tension, while giving you ample opportunity to unleash thy fury on the ugly-mutated aliens. Check out the gameplay video, and wait for more on Dead Space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLwKMjUxvQQ

I recently got the chance to try out the new EA title called Mirror’s Edge, and let me assure you that it was a pleasant experience, this is a game that is truly unique. The game revolves around “Runners”, agile messengers and their job is to transfer information within a highly guarded city. The plot is no Oscar winner, but the gameplay kicks every other FPS in the behind. You play as a runner known as Faith and you are capable of scaling almost any obstacle ala Parkour .The objective is to avoid combat and complete your objective, which adds a new twist to the stale genre. The game is very cinematic and gives you a great sense of speed. Enough talk, you have to watch the video, and do enjoy the background score.

Session Chairman – Arun Mehra, Zapak

Panelists –
+ Shantanu Sirohi, Interactive Avenues
+ Madan Sanglikar, Mindshare
+ Saurabh Kanwar, Channel [V]

The session was focused on marketing the games themselves and marketing done through the games.

Shantanu started his session first. Being from an Interactive agency, he started off by saying that there are three things which are important for a game marketer to reach a consumer – contact, location andpropogation. He further gave the examples of two case studies that he his company did. For Colgate Maxfresh and for Intel. With Intel, they integrated the brand well within a brand. The screenshots they he displayed clearly shoed the brand telling the player how much energy is left and does he want Intel to boost the energy further?

Madan’s examples were also focused on examples of how consumer can now be reached through various games.

What came as refreshing were, however, Saurabh’s presentation. Actually, he did not had any presentation. He just started speaking about various trends that he saw along with the work that he had done. He spoke of Raghu Dixit and how with the power of collaboration, he is become important.

Saurabh then went on to state how their research shows that kids don’t have a problem with ads, given the ads are interesting. He then showed a clip of a video that his channel created titled the “Lola Game”. They created a caller tune out of this and sold this off to Reliance Mobile. And it was s huge success. One interesting remark that he made and got a lot of laughs from the audience was – “They are Reliance . . . right . . . they screwed us”.

He further goes on to talk about a band called Nine Inch Nails. He explained how they employed a very unique way of marketing by putting in clues for a treasure hunt at various places. Both online and offline. And the 200 winners to the final clue were treated to an exclusive concert by the Nine Inch Nails. Saurabh’s point was what Nine Inch Nails played was actually a game. The game had elements from online and offline world. And the consumer was engaged actively with the game. That’s what needs to be done now. Games should guarantee engagement.

He later showed a video where an entire building was used to play Tetris. The video made for an interesting watch. Another example of how simple games like Tetris can be made engaging.

The session concluded with a Question & Answer session where someone asked a question about how do the media acknowledge achievers of the gaming community and make them stars. As an example he spoke of a friend of him sitting besides him who is a national champion in gaming, but still unknown.Saurabh said the first step is to acknowledge these people in forums like this (the Zapak Summit).  So he invited the guy on the stage to sit with him. He said its important that a proper recognition be given to achievers like this. Everybody hoped that with time, this will happen and the kids like him will be known not just in their own college but the entire gaming community at large.

Session 3 was on Gaming Platforms – Online / Mobile / PC / Console

Moderator – Alok Kejriwal, Co-founder and CEO, Games2win.com

Panelists –
Ajay Khanna, EA
Ninad Chhaya, Executive Vice President, Jump Games,
Muslim Kapasi, Excel Productions

The Session started by Alok asking questions the way the business model works for different platforms. The different panelists were from companies making Games for different platforms. While EA (Electronic Arts) has been traditionally been a console and PC game maker, Jump Games, now a part of Reliance ADAG group, makes games for mobile devices.

Ajay described how the business model works. According to him, the whole idea is to create and invest in properties. Game properties. These are the brands within the games that we know. It might be a movies like Lord of The Ring, a person, like Tiger Woods or an independent IP developed by the gaming company, like Need For Speed. In each case, the idea is to build on this property. So, with time, we see more versions of the games based on a property. We identify a property by the series of games build around it. Thus starts the monetization of the property.

The marketing is done through popular retail channels, where they keep the game on the shelf of thousand of stores. In here the purchase is driven mainly by impulse. Another sales channel is direct marketing, where a user might be allowed to download the game directly to her PC. This is a BIG HIT – BIG MISS game, made for the big players.

Ninad started by giving a comparison saying that if EA was like a movie studio, Jump games was more like a TV producer. The scale is different and so is the consumption channel. So the business model is make a game, and then distribute it to the telcos. The revenues-sharing with the telcos over game downloads is what brings in the money. He also pointed out that the placemen of the game in the stack of the games is very important. A game, if places on the first page of the download lists, is sure to get decent downloads, than the one placed later on.

Kapasi touched upon some pints in visual merchandising. He stressed the needs for creating different touch points for the consumer. These are the places where the consumer can be engaged and be potentially turned into a customer.

Alok Kejriwal went on to explain how the VCs do not explain the online gaming business properly. That’s one of the reasons for stagnant growth in this sector. Alok also put forward the point of Edugaming, that is, games for education. All the panelists agreed that Edugaming is something that ha s a lot of potential. Alok was also very confident on in-game advertising. His “front-of-envelope” calculation shows that in-game advertising will grow to be around $500-800 million. In-game item sale is also something that can fetch a good part of the revenues.

A very interesting question that Alok asked was – Why not Moser-Baer effect on the games? Why not make them available for Rs.50? Ajay replied to this by saying that the cost of game development doesn’t gives the freedom to cut prices to those levels. PC games cost around Rs.50 crore in production.

Regarding the question about what has changed in the last few years, Ninad replied that iPhone has come now. According to a report, the iPhone is the single largest distribution channel for flash games now. Earlier, the consumers used to go to the games, now the games have to come to the consumers.

A valid point of piracy was rasied in the discussion, to which Ajay replied by saying why not let the piracy flourish. He gave the example of Napster/MySpace. How unknown bands are now distributing their music on MySpace. Kapasi says, its theft. The circumstances are different. The unknown bands on MySpace are the ones which are not putting in considerable investment in producing their music. Whereas, the commercial music production costs money and it’s important to get the returns on investment. Piracy, thus hits the music companies.

A very good example that Ajay gave was of China. Once we was in China, in a street full of people selling pirated DVDs. One of the sellers put an offer in front of him. He said that if Ajay busy four DVDs from him, he will give him the membership to his club and he can buy the subsequent titles at a much lower price then. Just an eye opener on how far have the pirates gone.

The Session concluded by everyone foreseeing more gadgets everywhere, capable of playing games. There will be games all around us. And causal gamers will only increase.

National Geographic has partnered with Namco Bandai and Sony Computer Entertainment to publish and distribute games for the Wii, DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, PC, and mobile devices.

National Geographic also announced Herod’s Lost Tomb, a cross-promotional title that ties into the December 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine as well as a feature broadcast on the National Geographic Channel. The game will be available this month for the PC, Mac, and iPhones. A free Flash version is also available on the company’s Web site.

The games expected from National Geographic are Sudoku Traveler: China in December, with Rainforests, Green City, and From the Bottom Up expected to arrive sometime in 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFTbiS4Y6Dk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbzyt79iSR0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jimx6v7OxEc