Adobe Capitulates On Flash-To-iPhone Converter

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Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement sub-article 3.3.1 has drawn serious criticism since its introduction. The infamous clause essentially bans the conversion of Flash apps to the iPhone, cutting off a fairly large business that used the Flash-to-iPhone converter.

Principal product manager for developer relations for the Flash platform at Adobe Mike Chambers has responded to this by asking smartphone Flash app developers to cease making products for iPhone. He also conceded that they will abandon working on the Flash-to-iPhone converter.

“We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5. However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature,” wrote Chambers in his blog, adding, “If you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at anytime, and for seemingly any reason.”

Source: Mashable

Xbox TV Channel Pitched

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Microsoft and a former News Corp. President were recently in discussions to create a TV channel for the Xbox 360, say some anonymous insiders. The proposal said that subscribers would receive the new programming, which would feature new content along with reruns, all designed to target a young male audience.

“The new service would be funded by a $1 or $2 increase to the Xbox Live Gold subscription fee. The new channel would be owned by both the executive, Peter Chernin, and Microsoft. Peter is talking to lots of people about lots of ideas in the digital space,” said Chernin’s publicist Allan Mayer.

There’s no telling if this will ever come to fruition, but it’s clear that Microsoft’s intentions with the Xbox have always gone beyond gaming; they want to own the living room. An ad supported Xbox Live TV channel certainly would be interesting for brand marketers.

Source: Bloomberg {link no longer active}

Web Portals Still Vital For Marketers

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Web portals are not the be all and end all that they used to be, but they still are valuable commodities to online marketers because of the traffic they drive. Google, for instance, sees over $7 billion in ad spends a year, while Yahoo gets $3.5 billion; AOL and Microsoft receive about $1 billion apiece.

eMarketer indicates that users still use main destination sites as much as they did five years ago, and are likely to continue doing so for at least the next few years. The over $13 billion in ad spend for top portals is over half the ad dollars for the whole Internet ($23.5 billion).

Source: Ad Week {link no longer active}

Offerpal Adding Display Ad Network

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Offerpal revealed today that it is moving into the display ad network business. Currently, the firm works on mobile monetization and ads in social apps where players can sign up for a special service instead of directly paying for elements in the game.

Offerpal chief revenue officer Mihir Shah indicated that they are looking to make their services more comprehensive for ad agencies and major brands trying to reach social app audiences. These new options let marketers reach Offerpal’s network of 225 million users across 2,000 social web sites and apps.

Source: VentureBeat {link no longer active}

Okamiden Paints Life Onto DS

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Okami was beloved by gamers for its stylistic art and clever painting gameplay, but its niche sales suggested it may never see a sequel. However, Capcom has decided to make a sequel called Okamiden for the DS and revealed it’s coming to the U.S. today during Captivate 10, showing the game off in this debut trailer:

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 ntendo Wii

Home Video’s Future

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DVD has helped expand the home video market even further, not only making insane profits for movie studios because of their small overhead, but also making it possible to release whole TV series in an economical fashion. Still, the down economy has made sales sag as much as 30 percent and that’s forced some movie studios to rethink their strategies.

“Inspired by the dismal economy and the drop in DVD revenue, studios are rethinking how they make talent deals — eliminating first-dollar gross, limiting writers to one guaranteed draft and generally doing what they should have been doing years ago when DVD revenue was at its peak: trying to run their business like a business instead of a lottery,” writes Jeffrey Korchek. “Because it’s the movie business, there always needs to be the dream of a windfall in the future, and this year’s entrant in the everything old is new again category, 3D, is the next best hope. But the decline in the DVD business has broader implications that are not answered by converting every movie to 3D, and in the same way that the introduction of DVD changed the face of the business, the migration away from the format is changing it again.”

“3D appears capable of attracting audiences out to the theater, and certain movies might work well to be upgraded for 3D, but movie studios have another problem: Netflix and Redbox. These two have taken the place of most of what video stores used to do, but their profitability for studios isn’t great… making video-on-demand more appealing to them.”

“VOD may be the better alternative for consumer and studio alike,” adds Korchek. “For consumers, the below-$5 price point is affordable, and how many movies are worth owning anyway For studios, a VOD transaction is a license, affording them more control like theatrical distribution. But there are alternatives: Sony and Microsoft are talking about putting your movies in a cloud, just like Jell-O did with pudding, so that consumers can watch their movies on any of their multiple platforms. That pits them against Apple and its proprietary system, which manages 75 percent of the VOD market and 95 percent of download-to-own transactions. But there’s a catch: Although there is some lack of clarity among studios, VOD generally is treated as television distribution in profit definitions and for guild residual purposes, meaning that 100 percent, not 20 percent, of studio revenue is included in gross revenue for those purposes. As consumers migrate to in-home transactions like VOD, the financial implications are more complex than merely replacing one purchase transaction with another.”

“The issues facing the motion picture business and the economic system surrounding it are enormous and complex because nothing about the pictures is ever small. Unfortunately, planning for the future often is orphaned when the next big hit or new technology comes along. Without a comprehensive plan, though, the business is in danger of its dreams of a brilliant future being already behind it, and as Nick Carraway would note, studio executives — so slavishly devoted to the green light — will be thinking they are moving forward as they are borne back ceaselessly into the past, he concludes.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Halo: Reach Marketing ‘Will Be At A Much Higher Scale’ Than ODST

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The Halo franchise is no stranger to large ad campaigns, and for good reason. Halo is the franchise people purchase Xbox hardware for. Halo 3 had its ‘Believe’ campaign and Halo 3: ODST introduced the ‘We Are ODST’ ads, but Bungie community director Brian Jarrard thinks Halo: Reach will be grander still in its ads.

“We’re very optimistic, said Jarrard. We have a lot riding on this game and we have high expectations for it. I think you can expect to see a lot more grandiose marketing efforts; things will be at a much higher scale than they were for ODST.”

“There are a lot of great games coming out this fall, a lot of shooters in particular. I think we definitely benefit from having a really huge built-in audience. We have a huge, high-level, pop-culture awareness that a lot of other games don’t. The 360 has a much bigger install base than we had back in the Halo 3 era, so a lot of things are working in our favor,” he continued. “We certainly feel Reach will be the best Halo game that Bungie’s ever made, and I think Microsoft’s going to bet really big behind it. This is what Microsoft does really well big, huge entertainment launches. You’re going to see that happen again for Reach.”

Source: IndustryGamers  {link no longer active}

Sims 3 Gets Renault Electric Cars

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Electronic Arts announced today that it has signed a multi-year agreement with Renault to include their upcoming electric cars as downloads for The Sims 3. This interesting product placement deal will see Renault’s electric Twizy Z.E Concept car included as part of the ‘Electric Vehicle Pack’ that will also feature solar panels and a windmill.

“This partnership delivers benefits for Renault and the consumer that are unique in today’s media landscape,” said Elizabeth Harz, Senior Vice President of Global Media Sales for EA. “Millions of The Sims 3 players will be able to download Renault concept vehicles and have a deep experience with the brand, while receiving genuine added gameplay value.”

“The Sims 3 players have demonstrated consistent enthusiasm for bringing cool ‘real world’ brands into their virtual world,” said Steve Seabolt, VP of Global Brand Development for The Sims. “We’re excited to work with Renault on their electric vehicles and have them available for download for The Sims 3.”

“Electric vehicles are going to appeal to younger, more socially conscious customers and especially early adopters,” said Stephen Norman, SVP, Global Marketing for the Renault Group. “This is the heartland of The Sims 3 community and it thus provides a great innovative way to build the Renault Brand just ahead of the Renault range of affordable electric vehicles themselves.”