Google Legitimizes the Guy in His Mom’s Basement

It’s a great day to be a nerd. I’m not about talking the trendy, chique, social media guy “nerd”. I’m talking about the nerds who camp out for the midnight release of the latest World of Warcraft release. I’m talking about the guy who beat Diablo III on release night despite server issues. I’m talking about the guy who spends 40 hours a week raging at his Xbox while playing Call of Duty. I’m talking about the gamer.

Google recently invested $35 million in Machinima. For those of you that do not know, Machinima is one of the largest YouTube partners. The 2008 startup receives 1.6 billion views per month. Their content? Dudes in their mom’s basement recording themselves playing video games. The channel has an audience of 168 million nerds and I could not be more proud to be one of those individuals.

How does the Machnimia business model work? Easy. It is a distribution network that hires hundreds of Directors. These directors are responsible for submitting content to Machinima on a regular basis. The recording, editing and distribution of videos has become a full time job for these lucky directors. Nerds around the world salivate to be part of Machinima and get paid to play games. CNN recently reported that one of Machinima’s premium directors, SeaNanners, makes well over six figures.

How do they make money? YouTube ads. Very specific, targeted ads which have shown to be extremely successful. Many of the directors are also leveraged as spokespeople for video game products. The guys are celebrities.

What does this mean? It means that the dude in his mom’s basement can be his own boss. The guy that has been “wasting his life” for the past 10 years playing games actually knew what he was doing and because he followed his dream can now be rewarded.

It may not be the $1 billion Instagram recently received from Facebook, but this investment will thoroughly extend Machinima’s reach. A large portion of Machinima’s audience is overseas. Currently, Machinima has hundreds of directors but only a  handful of them are international. I see Machinima expanding their global footprint with large potential in both Europe and Asia where gaming has already been accepted in to mainstream culture.

This investment will also hopefully encourage more developments in the online video space as more and more people begin to ditch their ole dinosaur piece of machinery called a TV.

Until then, you can find me on Xbox Live as chadwoneck. 

Gaming Going Mobile

There has been a ton of gaming news this week. Rumors of the new Xbox 720’s features, Call of Duty’s first DLC content drop and now news from PC gaming’s largest store/platform/social application, Steam.

Steam, a product of Valve and the home of every PC gamer, is an online platform, which allows users to buy and play games. The game selection varies from huge blockbusters to small indie games. One of the best features of Steam is its social aspect. It allows users to connect no matter what game they prefer to play. Today, Steam released a mobile version of its platform for both iOS and Android. This is a huge step in the gaming community.

Earlier last week, Call of Duty also released a mobile application for it’s Elite service for both iOS and Android devices. Will this trend live on for future individual game releases or is this something that we will only see from larger studios and larger, social platforms?

Looking at the landscape ahead, it makes much more sense for platforms such as Steam and Call of Duty Elite to create mobile apps for the sheer reason that both of their applications include a social aspect. In the past, gamers had to be tied to their consoles or PCs in order to socialize and interact with one another. Adding a mobile channel opens up communication even more in the community and allows users to have more conversations about gaming, compare stats and share their pwning noobs montage videos even away from the game.

Cross channel applications are something that we see on a daily basis, but this trend has yet to fully take shape in the gaming community. Here’s hoping that Steam and Call of Duty have set the bar for future releases. 

The Future of Gaming

My gaming career started in my grandpa’s basement when I was a toddler playing Mario and Zelda on the original Nintendo. Since my first experience, I have not put down the “sticks”. Video games provide entertainment, a visual escape and also displays humans’ continued digital innovation. I credit video games for shaping me into who I am today. They were an outlet for creativity, a social escape (when online gaming became big) and provided a window into technology, which fueled my passion to continue to learn and become a member of the industry in which I work today.

Developers have continued to evolve the video game space and because of these achievements, the gaming industry is now a multi-billion dollar industry. Let’s take a look at what innovations today are driving revenue and look ahead to what is in store for this ever-growing industry.

Today - COD Elite: Blending Social w/ Gaming

The top selling franchise in the gaming industry is Call of Duty. With every new release, Call of Duty breaks it’s own sales records and projections. Activision’s latest venture, Modern Warfare 3, which reached $1 billion in sales in just 16 days, gives gamers the option to join a Call of Duty social network named Call of Duty Elite. This service records and aggregates statistics for the player as well as gives them the opportunity to create/join groups, compete in tournaments and connect with other gamers on the platform. This application also allows users to upload videos and works in conjunction with the player’s Facebook and YouTube accounts.  Users now have the opportunity to share their gaming experience with their social networks in a way that never existed before, exposing the old “underworld of gaming” to the mainstream population.

http://www.callofduty.com/elite

The Future – Allowing Physical Objects to Appear in Digital Space

Virtual Reality has been a dream for gamers for decades. Since the beginning of the gaming revolution, the gamer has wanted to physically participate in the fantasy worlds that their character lives in. With the introduction of motion sensor technology, first steps have been made with Xbox’s Kinect, Playstation’s Move and Nintendo’s Wii. The next steps are being made in this direction. WowWee recently developed AppGear which allows users to interact with their action figures in a whole new way. Each action figure interacts with both iOS and Android devices to allow the user to play with their action figure in a digital space using augmented reality. Activision has also developed a title “Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure” which uses a cross-platform panel that allows users to play with their action figures in the video game.

Video games played a huge role in my life growing up and continue to develop me into a better person today. As they continue to evolve it will be interesting to see how these technologies are adopted by other industries to benefit users in all walks of life.