merchandising
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YouTube 'Merch Store' makes your artist channel a one-stop shop for the groupie goodies
Know what beats selling CDs (or USB sticks) and swag out of the trunk of your struggling band's party wagon? Striking a deal with Google to pitch those wares on the interwebs, that's what. Rolling out to official YouTube partners over the next few weeks, the newly created Merch Store will offer fans from all across the globe an opportunity to purchase MP3s, tickets for concerts and gatherings, and, of course, merchandise straight from your dedicated page. Helping ol' Mountain View make these coffer-filling goodies available are a handful of established online retailers like Amazon, iTunes, Songkick and Topspin. So, if you just can't wait for the Rebecca Black arena rock tour to blitz through your small town, keep clicking refresh on that artist channel for the inevitable slew of merchandising, merchandising.
Angry Birds hits 350 million downloads
Angry Birds continues its explosive growth. Almost 21 months after its December 2009 launch, the bird-flinging game now boasts of 350 million downloads and over 300 million minutes of gameplay each day. And its merchandising side is seeing similar gains. According to Andrew Stalbow, Rovio's General Manager for North America, monthly sales of plush toys and T-shirts are now in the millions. Not resting on its laurels, the franchise is readying two new games for release by the end of the year and is working on new features like geolocation to spicen things up.
NCsoft offering wall prints starting with City of Heroes
Readers, look at your wall. Now look at City of Heroes. Now back at your wall. Now back at the game. Your wall is not the video game. But if you purchase one of the new wall prints being offered by NCsoft, your wall could look like the game. Or at least the box art for the games, which is almost as good. And if you don't feel like purchasing one sight unseen, you can take a shot at getting one as part of a giveaway. During the previously announced meet and greet for City of Heroes players, the team at Paragon Studios will be giving away a select few prints as raffle prizes. While the superhero MMO is the first game to get the wall print treatment, other NCsoft games such as Aion and Guild Wars will be receiving their own prints within the near future -- keep an eye on the Facebook pages for the other games to see when the wall prints will be available.
38 Studios set to expand the world of Amalur into merchandising and a newsletter
Kingdoms of Amalur is a familiar name to gamers who are looking forward to Project Copernicus, the mysteriously code-named MMO under development by 38 Studios. If you're finding it hard to wait for more news on this project, 38 Studios has just the thing to distract you. The world of Amalur, created by R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, is going to begin showing up in the real world soon in the form of comics, toys, novels, and even a few more games. Not a surprise there, amirite? Speaking of other games set in Amalur, you'll see more from Reckoning soon. The single-player game is set to launch fall of 2011, and the game's online newsletter will launch in October. Will all of this activity surrounding Amalur include new information on Copernicus? It seems likely and it's fun to speculate, so here's hoping! [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
GDC08: LEGO Universe more than mere child's play
When we first heard that NetDevil was beginning development tentatively titled LEGO Universe late last year, our minds boggled at the creative possibilities. After all, creativity is really what LEGO is all about, using one's imagination to take a mere thought or idea and recreate it with multi-colored blocks. Sure, the game is being aimed primarily at youngsters between the ages of 8 and 12, but that's never stopped me from enjoying or getting excited about the franchise before. The game's main mechanic will essentially give players more blocks to play with and more real estate to play with it the more of the game's colorful work they explore. They describe a world where one player can build a fortified LEGO castle and try and stop a friend from invading it. They make it sound so simple one wonders what's taking Warhammer Online so long?What's perhaps more interesting is the clever merchandising tie-in being planned for the game that the team is talking about at GDC. According to their director for business development, players will be able to order real, packaged LEGO sets based on their virtual creations. While this has the potential to be extremely cool for savvy youths and eccentric adults alike, it also betrays LEGO's ulterior motive. Not content merely with fistfuls of money from software sales and further brand exposure, now they want to sell you stuff in the game too. Again, there is a potential for something really cool here, but only if their focus is on a fun MMO experience and not on working on a device that prints money. When your director for business development is described as the "guiding force" behind the game instead of a crummy old designer, you've already made the first step towards turning my LEGO-loving heart to stone.
The Daily Grind: Do you dig MMO merchandise?
With the success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, we've seen MMO merchandise not only on the web, but actually making it to malls. (For example, the J!nx WoW gear at Hot Topic.) Of course, one could argue that this is really a blessing in disguise as many parents and grandparents may not be willing to buy items online, but will spend time in a mall without fuss -- thus ensuring you actually get some gifts you're going to enjoy. (Or at least making it slightly more likely, anyway.)As an MMOer, do you like the concept of people running around in their MMO gear (like t-shirts, ball-caps and the like) or is that a shade too geeky to you? Did you ever spot someone sporting MMO gear and compliment them on their choice? Alternately, have you ever purchased any kind of MMO tie-in merchandise, like comics, figurines, or coffee-table art books instead of wearables because wearing game stuff was too much? If you haven't picked up any game goodies, what kinds of things would make you more inclined to pick something up?
South Park DVD on sale for Warcraft players
Blizzard has posted on the front page that they've set up a deal with Comedy Central: whenever you buy the South Park 10th Season DVD on the Comedy Central website, you can use the code "WARCRAFT" to get 15% off and free shipping.Season 10 contains, of course, the Emmy-nominated "Make Love, Not Warcraft" episode, in which half the show had the kids as fat, disgusting slobs, and the other half had them as machinima-created heroes in Azeroth. And apparently the rest of the season is pretty good, too, not to mention that you can get a WoW trial for free with it.So it sounds like a good deal on a good set of DVDs. It's also interesting just how much Blizzard is milking this connnection with the South Park guys (or maybe how much the South Park guys are milking Blizzard). Just imagine all the merchandising and tie-ins when Legendary finally released the World of Warcraft movies. Are we going to find Murloc marshmellows in breakfast cereals? Qiraji Quarter Pounders at McDonalds?
Retailers seek to promote HD DVD / Blu-ray titles equally
My, how things have changed in just a few short months. While we once groused over retailers not devoting enough attention to high-definition film, it wasn't too long before the SACD and DVD-A kiosks were canned (hey, it's our best guess, anyway) and HD DVD / Blu-ray titles received expanded exposure. Now that both formats are still holding (relatively) strong, it looks like the major players are seeking to provide an equal amount of promotion for each "until customers tell them they shouldn't." Jim Litwak, president and CEO at Trans World, was even quoted as saying that while Blu-ray sales were currently trumping HD DVD, "the customer is still saying that they want HD DVD." Firms such as Amazon, Best Buy, and Virgin Metastores were all noted as companies unwilling to "snub" one format while the war raged on, and that sits just fine with us.
