Moleskine entry: April 14th, 2011
Within the train, we’re on Moscow time. The timetables, dining schedule and bar opening hours are all on Moscow time.
When we get off the train however (at various stations and stops along the way), we’re suddenly on local time, which could be anything upwards of +2/3/4hrs more.
Time travel.
“It is our failure to achieve our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique”
- Conan O’Brien, June 12th 20011
I’ve already shared this both on Twitter and on Facebook, but it was happening upon an old article that I’d read a while ago did I then decide to post this video up here. It’s 20mins long, but worth every second; take some time out and appreciate Conan O’Brien.
If you’re done here read these excerpts from ‘The War for Late Night‘ by Bill Carter, c/o Vanity Fair. It tells you everything about why this speech means so much.
Then, once you’ve done that, check out this ‘kinetic typography’ video (a mere 2mins 45secs) of Conan’s farewell monologue from The Tonight Show.
The man is an inspiration.
Right, watch [the first 30secs of] this:
See that there? At around the 23second mark? Hang on, here’s a screen grab -
See that? That’ll be an iPhone 4 and, just to the right, a pair of Beats by Dre in-ear headphones. IN A VIDEO GAME TRAILER.
While in-game advertising is nothing new, in-game product placement is. However brazen, it does – in a weird way – kind of work. I spotted it, admittedly, as my marketing/advertising eyes and brains are trained to spot this stuff a mile away. However, it wasn’t exactly in your face per se, in fact it was quite subtle.
Best of all, if Lara Croft was a real person then I bet she probably would be an iPhone4 user (and would no doubt be rocking the Beats by Dre also).
So it kind of works. Ish.
The question I have is whether or not this placement is purely for payment/sponsorship purposes or will the game developers (completely blind-side us all and) make the handset itself integral to the progression of the game?
My money is obviously on the former. As I’ve already made clear, game development is costly and any kind of media partnership like this has to be sold in pretty quickly so as to capitalise on the opportunity to its full potential.
As a side thought, Apple ‘famously’ don’t pay for product placement*, but I wonder if Dre did? And if so, how much does eight seconds in a close-to-a-million views YouTube video cost?
The question doesn’t need to be asked – this is the start of a new trend and, as new home systems and games start rolling out to the masses, more and more placements will be occurring before our very eyes. Some subtle, some not. We could be verging into James Bond territory here, hell – we may even end up like The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.
Be certain of one thing, ever since Modern Warfare 2 had an ‘opening week’ bigger than Harry Potter, hunting season has been declared on this marketplace.
Watch closely, it’s coming.
*I can’t remember where I read it, but the word is ‘payment’ refers to an actual exchange of money. No mention at all of equipping every man, woman and child in the office with brand new iPods/iPhones/iPads/MacBook Pros etc…
Chatting to Neville Hobson the other day about gaming (of all subjects), we touched upon a mutual love of the first person shooter (FPS).
To put this into context, Neville and I have talked about a multitude of things in our time, including but not exclusive to; a love of technology, social media, all things mobile and – on occasion – a shared love of really good whisky. Not this day however, this day we touched upon gaming. Particularly: Duke Nukem Forever (DNF).
It was when Neville and I were attending a conference together that he happened to tweet this Duke Nukem Forever review (from Ars Technica). To save reading time the overall opinion of the (fantastically written) piece is that DNF is terrible.
The first 30 minutes of the game consist of moments where people idolize you—oh, and you can turn the lights on and off. You walk through a museum where relics from the first game are stored, which gives you a hint at how this title was put together. While Gearbox obviously remembered all the neat little details that made Duke such a classic, they didn’t remember to put those details in a good game. The game is hollow.
The thing is, Ars Technica aren’t alone either; to put it bluntly, the game has been universally panned.
Not good.
Another thing to make clear at this point is that I am not a Duke Nukem player. However, I am aware of the series in general and, even if you have only a modicum of knowledge around the DN series, you know that this game has been at least 15yrs in the making and one point was consigned to the deadpool of games that were rumoured to exist but never actually get made – aka ‘vaporware‘.
So at long last – after 15yrs of waiting – the game arrives and it is ‘an overwhelming disappointment’.
“They’ve ruined it” said Neville. “It’s terrible. It’s like the developers [on purpose or not] have never left the 90s”
When such a monumental mistake is made with this kind of global brand property, the question has to be asked: what kind of effect has this had on the long term validity of the franchise?
Will there be another Duke Nukem game? Perhaps not. In the same way that in the film industry, trilogy opener The Golden Compass didn’t exactly set the box office alight (and subsequently never got finished), will Duke Nukem suffer also?
More and more we’re seeing money being thrown at invested in gaming and – when systems are so far advanced and development costs are so high – a decent ROI is required to keep things moving. The question I posed to Neville, a fellow social media industry pundit and veteran, was:
How long will it be until the kind of reputation management processes we preach about make their way into this industry?
Devs on Twitter defending their work? Programmers blogging up in arms about the stress they’re placed under to deliver? What of the fans?
Another, arguably more popular, FPS franchise Modern Warfare came under fire recently for their plans around Call of Duty Elite that will require players to stump up an extra monthly fee for access to certain features. Pleased with this trend, the fans are not.
My point is: Reputation Management isn’t just about big FMCG brands, car manufacturers and retail. Other industries need to be involved too as, when the proverbial hits the fan, the processes need to be in place to handle it.
And, while Duke Nukem won’t exactly be taken off shelves and redesigned from the bottom up, perhaps the publishers will think twice in future before ruining such a beloved franchise ever again.
As the old adage goes:
It takes years to build a good reputation, and only seconds to destroy it.
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A week or so ago, while en route to see X-Men: Class, I happened upon this piece of advertising for BRINK.
I don’t know what it is about this image that is so striking (or in fact what it actually says about my brain’s stimulus/response mechanism), but for some reason it makes me want to find out more. Of Brink, at the time, I knew nothing. Further exploration has uncovered that it’s a new first-person-shooter (FPS) and that actually, apparently, it’s not very good. Translated: I asked a fellow gamer and he said – “Well, it’s alright.”
The image above has stayed with me. If there was a demo, I’d download it - as a hook, it got me.
However what has yet to happen to my nascent advocacy is any kind of pick up.
Advertising like this is crying out for integration. And by that I’m not just talking about having print, TV and outdoor all matching, I mean having a demo available, having monitoring tools in place picking to pick up any mention online, some kind of a social presence/activation/engagement strategy – something, anything that is there ready to spot that I have an interest.
As it stands, my gaming schedule(!) currently consists of re-visiting Modern Warfare 2, playing to the end of Red Dead Redemption and slowly getting drawn into the world of L.A. Noire. Room for another game in my life, there is not.
But Brink really does have me thinking; both about the advertising campaign around it and of course, the game itself.
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Incidentally, sometimes it works the other way around – this piece of engagement for Bulletstorm for instance fell on deaf ears. I had no idea who or what Bulletstorm was or is and found myself googling it to try and find out more. Frustrating really; I loved the asset, but the whole thing lacked any kind of personalisation. It did actually drive me to download the demo mind, but still – it left me feeling somewhat empty.
Moleskine entry: April 14th, 2011
It’s 11:30 Moscow time* and we’ve just woken up somewhere in Siberia. It’s OK, we are actually on a train (the trans-Mongolian express don’tcha know) and after a first, somewhat restless night of sleep, we’re around 850km outside of Moscow with another 3800km to go – it should be a long five days of travel ahead.
But that’s just it, it should be. However I doubt very much that it actually will. My four travel companions are quite frankly, awesome and last night – our first night aboard – was hilarious.
First there was the smuggling incident.
Some background: each cabin beds four. There are five of us. The others are two pairs and then there’s me. Which in turn means that there was every chance I’d be rooming with three random Mongolians. Except, I’m not. I’ve got the whole frickin’ room to myself [for the time being, at least]!
Which brings us to the smugglers. Marina, our Honcho in Moscow, had warned us about them already and – before we left – offered some handy advice:
“When you get in your cabin, check everywhere. If something looks like it doesn’t belong, put it outside your room. Not out the window, just put it in the corridor. The smugglers will just take it and move it elsewhere.”
Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong.
I checked my compartment quite thoroughly and still managed to miss two bags of stuff and one plastic torso [don't ask] – the cabins aren’t even that big! Next door however, a mad Mongolian woman had started taking stuff out of their ceiling!
The woman was fairly camera shy [they're smugglers after all], but I managed to get this one of her son who climbed up after her to reach into another compartment within the ceiling.
Speechless.
Later, after said smuggler had left, we realised that my room was free [apart from me - see above] and have since transformed it into a makeshift bar – aka ‘The Czar’s Retreat’.
3800kms to go. This trip, like I said before, is going to be – in the truest sense of the word – epic.
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I’m just wrapping up this diary entry and I need to add in one more thing. Sally has just asked if someone could go with her to get beer. “I don’t know where the bar is.” she says. “It’s OK…” we reply “…we’ll draw you a map.”
Brilliant.
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*Day One on the train, obviously…
Let’s get this straight – I am a geek.
Wolverine #90 got me into comic books and since that fateful day in 1995 I have dipped in and out of the comic book universe as I saw fit. In fact, tracing it back further still, growing up watching Christopher Reeve save the world as Superman influenced my life with and love of the superhero genre, definitely. But we’ll come back to him later.
Back at the turn of the millennium, Bryan Singer, whose directorial arrival was heralded by the sublime Usual Suspects, was tasked with bringing the world’s most unluckiest superheroes to the big screen.
To be fair to the guy, he didn’t do a bad job. Generally considered to be more of a taster of things to come, the first X-Men film definitely proved the concept, and when X-Men 2 (X2) arrived, we finally saw Singer’s vision fully coloured in before our eyes; Wolverine cut-loose, cameos-a-plenty and of course, that epic epic Nightcrawler opener.
Excellent stuff.
Since then though, with the X-Men at least, we have not been so lucky. X3: The Last Stand was frankly, terrible. A rushed schedule (largely in part to a last minute director change) not helping much and what with Mr Singer departing to work on [the extremely underrated] Superman Returns, the wheel was left unchecked and the series lost its course.
The less said about X:Men Origins: Wolverine the better.
Which brings us to First Class.
A few years ago the ‘Origins’ moniker was attached to a number of X-Projects (with Wolverine getting the first stab, so to speak) and First Class was one of them. When the news broke that the film was going ahead, it was promising to say the least.
First off, irrespective of takings (both X3 and XO:W both broke $200m at the box office) the studio knew they had to do something to prevent yet another bad X-film being made. This is a good sign. Second? Singer was back. This time taking a writer/producer credit and – in a match that seems to be made in geek heaven – Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (fresh from their own successes on the fantastic comic book adap, Kick-Ass), stepped into the roles of screenplay and director respectively.
The Gods were smiling.
But then, reports of a rushed production started appearing, followed by a poorly received above the line campaign and, to top it all off, every time a set pic was leaked, the ‘fans’ heaped scorn upon a franchise that was already fighting an uphill battle. Not cool.
When then trailer finally dropped, people did not know what to expect –
“Hang on, this actually looks quite good…”
Four months later, tickets were purchased and with much trepidation, we entered the cinema. Set in 1962, just before and during the Cuban missile crisis, First Class riffs on its 60s backdrop perfectly. With retro black lines drawn across the inevitable training montage scenes as well as a very suave, almost Austin Powers-like, Charles Xavier – brought to life by my second favourite actor in this film (I have a top three), James McAvoy. The time of the piece is set perfectly and trust me, it works.
Coming in third in the aforementioned trio of awesome, comes Kevin Bacon as the nefarious Sebastian Shaw. Hell-bent on world domination through a hitler-esque survival of the fittest, Bacon excels here. Fans of the books will understand that physically, in build at least, the two aren’t exactly similar however, with a combination of sheer stage screen presence and the film’s iteration of Shaw’s mutant power, this is swiftly forgotten – Kevin Bacon is Sebastian Shaw.
In at number one, our star of the show, Erik Lensherr – aka – Magneto.
Brought to life magnificently by Michael Fassbender. The vengeful intensity that he brings to Magneto’s early years is completely believeable and, once his solo mission of revenge comes to the end of its first chapter, you understand completely why people are already calling Fassbender out as the next James Bond. Seriously.
The rest? Mystique and Beast (who share a number of interesting moments together) are noteworthy as is The White Queen, Emma Frost. However, the others are fairly forgettable. Perhaps it’s only Banshee’s Irish charm that keeps him from fading from my memory… Additionally, whilst Riptide manages to get through the film without uttering a single word, the award for most criminally under-used character goes to Azazel.
In comic book lore, Azazel is the father of X2’s Nightcrawler and, colouration aside, shares a similar look and power of his future son. It’s just a shame then that his [slightly russian?] origin was not explored further. But hey, there’s always future films – right?
Let’s be clear; X-Men: First Class is by far and away the best X-Men film to date. Given that X2 set the standard pretty high, this is praise indeed – especially for a franchise that was close to coming to an end.
Finally, don’t try and worry yourself about the time line too much; if you work under the assumption that Singer ‘did a Superman’ and ignored the third and fourth films in the series, then they kind of plug in together nicely. You learn how and why Mystique is the way she is, why Magneto is the way he is and – crucially – what happens after a young Erik Lensherr is spotted bending gates in a Nazi concentration camp.
In closing; if you’re a geek (and can forgive a bit liberty thievery here and there), you’ll get a kick out of this. If you’re not, it’s still a bloody good, almost caper-esque, action flick.
I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t leave the cinema completely blown away but now, a few days on from seeing the film, it has definitely grown on me.
Go see it.
If that’s what you’re called.
I got this today:
Here’s a question: what do you think of Zune?
I’m going to make a few assumptions (and do please, correct me if I’m wrong); if you’re a Zune user – aka ‘a Zuner’ – you’re probably American and you may’ve even bought, and perhaps even still use, the original Zune machine handheld thing that was never launched over here in the UK.
However, you may also be a Windows Phone (WP) user and/or an Xbox owner. All of these things I expect to influence your response to this following, secondary question:
Is it actually any good?
Now please. Before you move forward with your answer (either in the comments field below or in fact perhaps, with your own blogged repost) please take into account that your opinion may bias towards the positive as you’ve made such a chunky investment (especially you original Zune hardware owners). So please, give full and valid responses – warts an’ all, if you will.
Why am I asking this question? Well, I am an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, soon-to-be Windows-Phoner and avid Spotify fan. The latter of the three costs £9.99pcm and allows me all sorts of awesome music-based fantasticness. Treats such as:
Understand that your answers will help inform my decision on whether or not to drop Spotify for Zune (when WP finally launches on Nokia’s devices). As it stands, I’m reliably informed that Spotify is coming to WP with the next software update (aka ‘Mango), but because I like things to just work – I’m tempted to move for the full Zune offering.
Friends, Zuners, fellow tech-heads and audiophiles – it’s over to you.
