Reputation Management: Duke Nukem Forever

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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UPDATE:
Shortly after publishing, Neville pointed me to this further post from Ars Technica pointing out almost exactly what you SHOULD NOT DO in this kind of situation. Wow.
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Engagement: BRINK

A week or so ago, while en route to see X-Men: Class, I happened upon this piece of advertising for BRINK.

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.

 

————

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.

Hyper Connected

I’m at the Social Media Influence conference today, taking in talks on a variety of topics such as ‘The Future of Online Listening’, ‘Social Analytics and Customer Insight’ and ‘How to Talk Your Way Out of a Crisis’.

But more on that tomorrow.

What inspires me now is a figure that was just given on stage that:

“By the end of 2010, the average American will own six connected devices. People in the UK will, on average, own 4.5.”

Unfortunately this stat wasn’t attributed to any source so I can’t validate it [I’ll look for the slides tomorrow], however – I thought I’d throw the question out onto Twitter –

From my own collection, I count seven. But fifteen minutes (and 30-odd responses later), I’ve managed to pull together an average of 8.7 devices per person.
Which – aside from a few random cases – is quite telling and raises a few points and questions:

  1. My followers tend to be a bit more tech-savvy/heavy (and would therefore own more devices). Fair enough.
  2. If pushed, would the average person know that their internet radio or their TV is ‘connected’?
  3. In this constantly changing, yet ever more connected world we live in – what challenges will this present to the marketeers of tomorrow?

My point is – the internet of things promises a lot. It turns out that your average Joe’s data is going to be contributing a lot to this also – where are the opportunities?

Have a think on that and, while you’re at it, how many connected devices do you own?

 

 

 

The Social Media Rollercoaster

Round we go...Summer is coming and – between the torrential downpours – the sun will be shining once again.

Last weekend, while queueing up* for Adventure Island‘s RAGE rollercoaster on Southend Seafront, I began wondering how theme parks could use social media and further engender positive word of mouth.

And, it was after reading Joe’s post earlier this week around the Social Season Ticket, did I then decide to put my thoughts down on paper – so to speak.

To my mind, theme parks and attractions have a fantastic opportunity when it comes to social media. Standing in line amongst the other would-be screamers, my brain started buzzing. So much so, I made notes –

‘Wouldn’t it be cool if each main attraction at a major theme park had its own Twitter account broadcasting not only for ‘on brand’ messaging [ie: ‘Boo!’ for the haunted house] but also – and much more importantly – up to date queue time information. As a guide for the more socially-savvy guest, this service could prove invaluable.’

This is not an untouched area in this industry. Back in February, Alton Towers announced they were a launch partner for Facebook Deals here in the UK. According to their site:

“On Friday 18th February 2011, the Alton Towers Theme Park opened a day earlier than planned for the Half Term holiday, offering exclusive use for anyone who checked in with Facebook Deals on that day. Guests were able to enter the Theme Park with up to three friends, completely free. 100 lucky people will also claimed a hotel stay on the night of 18 February 2011, completely free!”

Very swish.

As with any industry, it really does depend on how much time and money theme parks want to invest in making this a success; is it a case of a simple Facebook promotion [Like ‘Thorpe Park’ on Facebook and get 10% off your ticket entry] or do you want to go the whole hog and have Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare integrated across every branded touch point [including your entrance ticket].

My advice?

As ever, choose an objective and stick to it –

  • Want to increase footfall?
    Great, run an online ticket promotion
  • Want to sell more gifts + toys?
    Offer Foursquare deals at specific stores across the park
  • Want to help control traffic around the park?
    Introduce ride-only Twitter accounts which tweet when the queues reach over an hour

One last idea from me –

Why don’t theme park ride photographs post straight to Facebook?

This is such an obvious and quick win. Photos get uploaded to Facebook, guests like the page and then are able to tag themselves post-visit. Ultimately, sharing branded experiences with their Facebook friends using branded photos.

It’s certainly better than forking out £8.00 for an old school photograph that you’ll probably get crumpled up on the way home…

All of that aside; as an avid theme park fan myself, if Twitter was used as an information service for each ride? I’d be there like a shot.

 

*Yes. This is how my brain works even on my day off

Day One*: The Czar’s Retreat

Mongolians packing a LOT for the trip

Moleskine entry: April 14th, 2011

Where do I begin?

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!

Mongolian. Smuggling.

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.

—————–

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.”

09062011437

Brilliant.

 

—————–

 

*Day One on the train, obviously…

1000heads: Facebook facial recognition: do you care?

Today’s headlines:

The news is out this morning that literally overnight, Facebook has switched on facial recognition for tagging by default. Typically of the gargantuan social network, the onus is on the user to opt-out of this ‘upgrade’.

A few things on this -  first, for the super-private, here’s how to do just that –

Step 1.
From the Facebook ‘Home‘ page, go to ‘Account‘ and then ‘Privacy Settings‘

Step 2.
From there, scroll down to ‘Customise Settings‘

Step 3.
Scroll down again until you find a section entitled ‘Things others share‘

You’ll find the setting you need to adjust (it’ll be the one automatically switched to ‘enabled’) right next to the above section. Done that? Right. Good.

To my second, and leading point/question – do you actually care?

Yes it’s easy to get annoyed about Facebook not asking permission to switch this on, as well as automatically assigning you the default setting of ‘Yes, I want this’. However, surely if you’re not an idiot when it comes to privacy, you’ve already got a certain amount of barriers and settings in place that prevent unwanted friends and tags taking place, right?

Surely, if you’re smart with your photo tagging (and with your friend requests for that matter), this new feature (whisper it) actually makes life easier.

Yes, tagging your friends in photos is fun, but it can take ages. Having Facebook SUGGEST [yes – ‘suggest’ – not ‘automatically tag’] to YOUR FRIENDS that you might be in one of their photos really isn’t such a big deal.

Moreover, with marketeers increasingly looking for new ways to interact with your relationships, there might even actually be some room here for some real life, campaign-based innovation. Amazing.

So, for me at least, the question still stands: when it comes to Facebook’s new facial recognition, do you care?

Answers on a postcard (or in the comments below).

Review: X-Men: First Class

No spoilers. 

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.

 

 

Paging Zuners

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:

  • Access to an almost infinite amount of music
  • Downloadable content that I can play offline, both on my desktop and on my mobile
  • Sharable cross-platform playlists of awesomeness (that can be locked down or collaborative)
  • Thanks to the marvelous integration on both Spotify and Xbox Live, I can stream my most listened to tracks through my Xbox using the Last.fm application available through Live Gold
  • Bonus feature, said music can be controlled BY VOICE thanks to my Kinect

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.

Disrupting with The Kaiser Chiefs

Over the weekend UK-based ‘indie’ band, The Kaiser Chiefs, went public with their latest album offering ‘The Future is Medieval’. What makes this launch unique different is that for the first time, Chiefs fans can create their own version of the album and then make money from the sales of that bespoke version.

As the website puts it:

Once complete, fans will be given their own page on the Kaiser Chiefs website to sell their version of the album and, for each one sold, the curator gets £1.

Not. Bad. At. All. It’s certainly got our chins wagging today…

Why is this so good?

Mashable says it’s because ‘the fans are turned into producers’, ‘The fans get financial rewards!‘ says Marketing Magazine and The Next Web have gone so far to call it ‘a brilliant stroke of social media‘ and cite that the real beauty is that ‘every album will be different’. Yes. Quite.

Here at the ‘heads we’ve got a different take. For example, Tom Messett, senior presences manager and all ’round fan of rewarding engagement says:

“It’s about creating awareness… It is a stunt. They will have it exclusively like this for about four weeks then slap their real version (probably the full 20) on iTunes when everyone is talking about it and all their fans are posting about their exclusive version, if some famous people do one then they might get some traction, as well among frontier communities. It is disruptive, and in this market, that is good.”

He has a point.

Of all the headlines I’ve read over the weekend and the course of this morning, many different buzzwords are being thrown around, ‘the future of social marketing/music/commerce’ etc – delete where appropriate.

It works because:

  • Music industry disruption is always welcome (but nothing new*)
  • It rewards the real fans; both financially and through social kudos (imagine if your version of the album gets into the top ten – sweet)
  • Personalisation is key, and they’ve delivered that both with the playlist selection and the album cover
  • Your fans become the sales people
  • It’s proper, actual content curation

But, as with any fan-pleasing innovation, there are the naysayers:

Overall, this kind of member-get-member scheme is nothing new to the industry. As always, it’s the packaging and the communications around it that sells. The website is lovely to use and to look at, the premise is simple enough and – eventually – one wonders what kind of lasting effect (if any) this will have on the industry as a whole.

———-

*that nothing new part? Where do we begin?

Three album launches that disrupted in their own way. The difference with these being the disruption came from the artist(s) themselves as opposed any kind of agency tie-in/support.

Interesting.

What will you do Next?

Here in the UK, high street clothes brand Next are running a competition entitled ‘Make me the Next model 2011’. Basically, they’re asking the general public to help choose the new modelling talent for their next big campaign.

The prizes?

Well for two overall winners will each enjoy a £2,000 shopping spree at Next, the chance to star in a photo-shoot for Next and a special introduction to leading model agency, Storm. Fantastic, right?

Earlier this week tweets started appearing encouraging others to vote for the underdog; as this morning’s Metro Newspaper described, said underdog is the ‘unconventional’ looking Roland B.

Currently, Roland is sitting pretty at the top of the rankings and probably – thanks to a rather huge online following – lengths and breadths ahead of the rest of the competition.

So what do you do Next?

If we examine the competition mechanic more closely we can see that there is every opportunity to remove Roland from the competition after this early stage. To quote:

“The online public vote at next.co.uk/model will decide the Top 250 – all of whom will be invited to London on Friday 29 July, 2011 for a special one-day course at Next’s Runway Academy.

The lucky hopefuls will meet industry experts who will offer invaluable advice on all aspects of modelling, while our panel of judges will choose a Top 50 shortlist to return for the following day’s fabulous, fun-packed, live Grand Final on Saturday 30 July, 2011.”

Whether or not the panel of judges choose Roland B to progress to the final 50 remains to be seen but there is a huge opportunity here and Next would be mad to skip over it.

Next is a part of the old guard when it comes to high street fashion chains; @NextOfficial – while sitting at nigh-on 8000 followers, pales into comparison when you look at TopShop (160k) and ASOS (120k). However, when you look at the more widely-known (and used) social network, Facebook, Next have a very respectable half a million fans.

And this is where things get interesting. Next obviously have a lot of fans out there but by the looks of things, so does Roland B. As my colleague Tim Denyer said to me earlier on today ‘It’s about knowing your audience’ – The board may insist on catwalk models but your fans, the ones that make and break your brand, obviously want something else.

The opportunity here is that this competition has opened the door for Next to be really disruptive and actually embrace change. By allowing Roland B to progress through to the final and – dare I say it – become one of the winners of the overall competition Next is able to make a statement to the rest of the industry along the lines of:

“Our clothes are for everyone. Not just the models we put in our catalogues and our commercials. Everyone.”

Roland B is representing the underdogs of this world and, with the internet behind him, he may well score a victory for them too.

All that remains to be seen, especially now that the story has hit the mainstream press, is whether or not the brand capitalises on his following and support.

Alright it’s not chicken-flavoured Pril, nor is it Bieber in Korea, but there’s a reputation issue on the horizon if this falls over – and Next need to be sure they make the right decision. The people are watching.

Vote for Roland.