lily allen + simlish + machinima = 1.8 million video views

Influx Insights — 2007-09-10T02:03:45Z

This isn't new news, but it is newsworthy. We just noticed that Lily Allen, pop singer of recent note, produced a music video in association with the world's largest videogame publisher, Electronic Arts. Here's the twist: she resang her song in the made-up language of The Sims videogame franchise, known as Simlish. Other artists like The Black Eyed Peas, Barenaked Ladies, and Depeche Mode have recorded songs in Simlish before, but the addition of a viral machinima video to the mix landed both Capitol Records and EA a nice hit. Back in 2003, this very blog had this to say about machinima, "In the nearer future, watch for machinima popping up in ad agencies as a superior way to storyboard, to inexpensively test concepts and ultimately to produce advertising." How prescient. The Smile (Simlish) video is EA's most viewed YouTube effort at almost 1.8 million views (between two similar videos). The standard Smile video has received 3.7 million.

The Simlish video was part of a larger advertising effort tied into EA's February 2007 acquisition, online music community site, Singshot.com. The contest only generated 110 entries, but Singshot is worth checking out. It's an online karaoke site like Fox Interactive's own acquisition ksolo.com. Within a couple of minutes, you can record yourself in audio and video singing thousands of songs. Michelle Tsai over at Slate has a great rundown of the ease and the appeal. Maybe it's too easy, actually. This intrepid blogger may or may not have recorded a take of Petey Pablo's "Raise Up." The problem for Singshot might be that a Ksolo/American Idol partnership would be awful tough to beat in the marketplace.

Written by Alexis Madrigal, a former gaming analyst who blogs at the rather excellent Consumer Conspicuous. Writer, producer, and consumerist, he is a product of Ridgefield, WA (pop. 3000) and Harvard’s English department. Trained as an analyst, he is interested in consumers with limitations—children, the poor, rural residents, housewives, the elderly, non-English speakers—and their uses of interactive entertainment.

Posted by Ed Cotton

mass gaming

Influx Insights — 2007-07-10T14:23:45Z

Gaming is about to undergo a major revolution; the success of Nintendo’s Wii has woken publishers, developers and the console manufacturers to the potential reality of a genuine mass market.

Everyone loves to play, but for too long gaming has defined itself and marketed to the stereotypical teenage male gamer and missed out on the rest of the population.

John Riccitiello, the CEO of EA acknowledged this problem in a recent interview.

"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play.”

Here are a couple of interesting new gaming initiatives, including one one from EA.

1. Newsgames

Persuasive Games recently signed a deal with the New York Times to provide newsgames for the publishing giant. The first game, Food Import Folly explores the issue of FDA food inspections.

Gaming for Times readers, who would have thought?

2. User-Generated Fashion games

H&M and EA teamed up for The Sims to allow users to integrate H&M fashions into their game play. Instead of turning to Second Life, H&M turned to an established brand franchise to create an interactive experience.

With a branded Sims Pack, users also have the opportunity to see new designs, check out virtual stores and create their own designs, with H&M showcasing the best concepts in virtual fashion shows.

H&M’s effort is a nice integration of user-generated content, brand experience and gaming.

Expect to see more innovation from the gaming world as it tries to broaden its audience base and as advertisers chase after opportunities to engage with consumers in new and more playful ways.

Posted by Ed Cotton

Influx Insights Tag Feed: ea

lily allen + simlish + machinima = 1.8 million video views

mass gaming