Hi, I’m Roderick Alemania and I’ll be moderating the gaming panel at the >play conference on Saturday. Casual gaming and console/pc video gaming have traditionally addressed different audiences (casual gaming – females, console/pc gaming - males). Recent trends show that console/pc gaming companies are shifting resources and investing in casual gaming. How will this affect the gaming marketplace and in what timeframe? I’m looking forward to a great discussion with the panelists.

A little bit about me: as VP Business Development at IGN Entertainment/Fox Interactive Media, I am responsible for creating original content/IP that lives across multiple platforms: online, TV, live events, etc. A few projects include founding and incubating News Corp’s video game league Championship Gaming Series and Executive Producing content for ATT Blue Room Gaming.

Sometime back I wrote about the Sustainability game. Now gaming site Kotaku reports that Electronic Arts has teamed up with BP to add global warming and sustainability to SimCity. In a more realistic way that the simple game from NPR, this time you will see the effects of powering your city with CO2 producing sources. The partner for EA in this effort? BP.

“We really were interested in entertainment with a bit of education, rather than education with a bit of entertainment,” explained Carol Battershell, vice president of BP Alternative Energy, an initiative that has committed $8 billion over the next 10 years to making plants that generate cleaner electricity via solar, wind, natural gas and hydrogen power. BP wanted to help shape the interactive power grid of “Sim City Societies.”

I did say in my previous post how nice it would be to have a SecondLife based game for sustainability and global warming. I ill take SimCity. Since my wishes are coming true, I now wish that EA, BP, Comcast, PG&E all team up to come up with a game that als senses what power source you are using to run your computer while building the city. S in addition to what you use to power the cities if you are using a “non-green” source you will see the effects. You also will get dinged for spending too much time online as you waste power by using youur computer, the network and the server farms at EA.

This sure will be another fun question to ask John Riccitiello at >play on October 27th at Haas School of Business.

Technorati Tags: sustainability, gobal warming, carbon neutral, co2 emissions, carbon levels, EA, Electronic arts, BP, play conference

A great video that chronicles how Wii Bowling has affected lives of residents of 4 retirement homes.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzp8S_7yspM

This may be a little over the top, but nonetheless very intriguing to see how pervasive the Wii has become- even amongst a generation that some people consider quite removed from technology.

This is it! At last.. we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi.

Here’s an article from Crave.

” Ever since Nintendo unveiled the Wii and its funky remote, gamers have been dreaming of Wiimote-controlled lightsaber battles. It’s been a long time coming, but LucasArts finally revealed its Wii lightsaber game: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

We’ve known about Force Unleashed for a few months now; the game has been scheduled to hit virtually every major platform for some time, and its absence on the Wii’s upcoming titles list didn’t go unnoticed. Now it’s finally been announced for the Wii, and a few new details have come out about the game. The Wii version of Force Unleashed will be more focused on lightsaber combat than the other consoles’ versions, and include a two-player duel mode so two Wiimote-wielding warriors can get their Jedi combat on.

Geeks flailing about with Wiimotes as if they were lightsabers. I sense a disturbance in the Force, as if a million flat-screen TVs cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

“Actually, because the number of units sold was not as high as we hoped, the loss was better than our original expectation.” - Nobuyuki Oneda, SONY Chief Financial Officer, about PS3 sales.

It’s good to lose to win…

Again, Blizzard is introducing an interesting innovation in the video game business.

The company, in cooperation with The First National Bank of Omaha, is launching a World of Warcraft VISA card. The interest for the WoW player is to earn for each dollar spent some time to play to her/his favorite game. See information here.

I am considering this move very interesting as it is bringing the industry in the same field as a lot of others, and is a mark for the credibility it could have toward financial institution. The fact that a VISA card is branded with one game (and not with a company name, such as an Electronic Arts VISA card) is a clear demonstration of the market behind this product and that more people will be willing to take advantage of it.

And yes, it will once again be good for the treasury chest of Blizzard and Vivendi Games… And no, I won’t apply for it (I don’t play WoW, to time consuming, and applying for a credit card is the US is a nightmare for me!).

I just went through this interesting article from the Guardian, an english newspaper.

I can only recommend you to go through it, as two of the most prominent people in the AI/VideoGame realms (Peter Molyneux and Steve Grand ) are giving their opinions about it.

If you are interested in video games and/or artificial intelligence, give it a look.

I really enjoyed Peter Moore’s talk today on the gaming industry from Microsoft’s perspective.  Thanks Joe, Paul, and Andy for making that happen!  Here’s a song with its own perspective on the gaming console market.

A group of DMECers just got back from our annual trip down to L.A. We are grateful to the companies who hosted us:

Fox Interactive Media
Warner Bros.
20th Century Fox
Yahoo! Media
Universal Music Group’s eLabs
Vivendi Games

For me, the highlight of the two days was contrasting the different ways the two News Corp. subsidiaries think about distributing content.

We had a great turn-out for our Thursday night happy hour in Santa Monica. A big thanks to everyone who came out!

I can’t wait for our next trip to LA. The town grows on me more and more everytime I visit. If you have suggestions for companies in the greater Los Angeles area worth visiting (maybe yours) or want to be sure we include you on the invite list for next year’s happy hour, just drop us a line.

(If anyone who was on the trip wants to add things to this post, feel free to edit it.  Of course, comments by all are always encouraged.)

According to a recent study (BBC), playing a driving game on your console or laptop could have an influence on how you drive in the REAL life. 27% of the people admit that they have a tendancy to drive faster after a gaming sesssion… Some people even imagine playing while driving (agreed: those are really dangerous!)

Well… I guess that some smart legislators somewhere will soon have the idea to impose a speed limit in videogame.

On the other hand, people playing driving simulation pass their driving test first time more than those not playing. It means that you can actually avoid spending money if you are playing. So should governments subsidize driving simulation?