26th November 2009 by Thomas
ICO Partners at the Game Connection event in Lyon
We will be attending the Lyon Game connection this December. You can find more information about the event on their website:
http://www.game-connection.com/
In a few words, this a “speed dating ” event between different actors of the game industry. Historically, it has been very focused in match-making developers and publishers, but the last couple of years has seen different service providers joining the event as well, from localisation providers to advertising networks and billing solutions.
Don’t hesitate to ask us for a meeting through the system.
Tags: Game Connection, ICO Partners
Posted in Events, ICO Partners
(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)26th November 2009 by Diane
Online games in Turkey
Last week, Diane was at an Online Games summit in Ankara, keynoting the event and meeting actors of the Turkish online games industry. It was a honour to be invited there, and she was very happy to learn more about the Turkish market, which is one of the big ones in Europe already, and is still in a phase of rapid growth.
As more Asian and American eyes are turning to the European market (since market is less mature and the Chinese market is increasingly closed), Turkey is emerging as a rising star of the European region for online games. The country has the second biggest population of the region, and a majority of them are young (60% are under 35) and educated. According to a recent Comscore report, Turkey is the 3rd most engaged Internet audience in the world. The games websites category there has a 68% penetration, higher than in the UK. According to government statistics, 24% of Turks aged 16+ played network games with other people in 2008.
Tags: europe, free to play, Turkey
Posted in Events, ICO Partners
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)19th November 2009 by Thomas
Interview with Thomas at GI.biz
Just prior to the London GamesConference last month, Thomas was interviewed by gamesindustry.biz about the future of distribution and physical versus digital. The interview is online now, and you can read it here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ico-partners-thomas-bidaux-interview.
Posted in Events, ICO Partners
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)11th November 2009 by Jen
Twitter basics for online games
If you’re doing community work or marketing on behalf of an MMO or other type of online game, you’ve probably already discovered twitter as a tool for reaching your players. Whether you’re just starting out or already managing an account, we’ve come up with a short list of things to think about when planning a twitter strategy for your game. Off we go… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Events, ICO Partners
(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)10th November 2009 by Jen
New advocacy group for UK gamers
One of the logos being considered to represent Gamers' Voice
Yesterday, in response to an inflammatory article in the Daily Mail concerning the content of Modern Warfare 2, geek-savvy Labour MP Tom Watson started a Facebook group called Gamers’ Voice to represent the interests of people who love video games. There are a LOT of us: in two days, the group has amassed over 9000 members!
If you live in the UK and are passionate about video games, please join and lend your support to Gamers’ Voice. You can also follow @tom_watson and @gamersvoice on twitter.
Posted in Events, ICO Partners
(2 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)6th November 2009 by Diane
Up and down the online game value chain
It’s well known that online games have been shortening the value chain, threatening the roles of middlemen such as publishers, distributors and retailers, and enabling developers to get in direct contact with players. However, as some very interesting discussions pointed out a few months ago, acquiring users (call it marketing, or traffic acquisition) is hard and expensive, which lends considerable power to other actors in the chain, such as:
- Digital distribution sites, like Steam
- Platform managers
- Aggregators, like Miniclip
- Community and media websites
- Ad networks
- SEO-savvy “gateway” portals (MMO lists, etc)
Channels like these have grown greatly in influence, and the conditions of working with the most prominent ones are becoming increasingly expensive (some of the biggest aggregators now ask for either lots of cash, or equity). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: development, Game Industry, publishing, value chain
Posted in Events, ICO Partners
(5 votes, average: 3.20 out of 5)4th November 2009 by Thomas
Cross-media strategy and MMOs
Developed in Spain and presented as an MMO for kids, there hasn’t been much noise around Planet 51 Online. The wikipedia page of the movie doesn’t mention it, there has been one article on it in the media in the past month (and it is the announcement about the fact they use the Trinigy Vision Engine), and the launch of the game was pretty low key, but since yesterday, the game is “live”. While the website is definitely presenting the game as fully developed and ready to go for mass consumption, the client is bearing a Beta flag. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Cross-media, kids, MMO, Planet 51
Posted in Events, ICO Partners
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)