Jacqueline Wilson said…what exactly?

First, the well known and hugely popular childrens author Jacqueline Wilson said that junk food, tv and the internet are ‘poisoning childhood‘

“They still need what developing human beings have always needed, including real food (as opposed to processed “junk”), real play (as opposed to sedentary screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives.”

But then follows a statement of regret that standards of kids’ tv will naturally fall as a result of any loss in ad revenue brought about by a ban on junk food advertising:

“For various reasons including the lack of advertising, our children are not going to get the very best television programmes any more,” said Wilson.

I dunno. There’s always the Beeb. Or maybe for the sake or decent drama on childrens’ commercial channels we should install Krispy Kreme vending machines in all primary school classrooms. These days you just can’t have you’re cake and eat it.

Chrysler.com - an Alexa rank of 9,000?

How can this be? Chrysler.com has an Alexa rank of 9,000. For an online brochure? Surely this is a spike caused by a runaway piece of viral content?

But no - a small amount of casual Googling reveals that Chrysler have been using branded games with huge success for over 2 years now. As a consequence of this partnership with Wild Tangent, they have found that online activity has had an increasing influence on the whole selling chain:

Chrysler is using a variety of custom branded games involving their products to lift its brand recognition and purchase intent among consumers. A “Chrysler Golf” title signed up 124,732 players and resulted in a 33% lift in purchase intent, while a “Jeep 4×4 Trail of Life” game got 383,403 users …and more than 1,000 Jeeps had been sold to players of the game in the last 18 months.

Recognising that I might be the last person in the games industry (or on the planet) to have spotted Chrysler’s investment in advergaming I still can’t believe this has been going on for so long; as our feeling is that it’s only this year that ad agencies and brands are accepting games as part of the language of marketing so that that they’re discussed as known feature of the landscape rather than ‘unknown territory’.

What I particularly like about what they have done is the ‘if we build it they will come’ approach. These may have been created as one-off promotional games but there is ongoing value in aggregating all the content to give their target audience exactly what they would have gone elsewhere for. Which means that once more I can post a link to this: It’s time to experiment 3.

Hitching a ride?

There’s a boom in advergames for cars at the moment, and some are much better than others.

A recent game for the Toyota Yaris was nicely produced, but it squanders this excellent foundation by being too difficult to understand and play.

Worse, it drives straight past its target audience. If the idea was to market the Yaris to young women flaunting their car about town, then this wasn’t helped by the game’s harsh colours, structure and complexity. In fact, the car at the centre of the game comes off like an aggressive prowler stalking the neighbourhood. Not a good look.

My guess is this was not developed by a games specialist, but rather by an in-house web designer or programmer who decided to try their hand at games design. Why is this my guess? The final product seems not to be based on solid market research, meaning that while the production and the design are pretty good, the fundamentals are missing.

This don’t mean I dismiss the possibility of using advergames to market cars to young women — far from it. For example, racing games such as Peugeot Time Trials and Driving BMW may seem masculine, but their simple objectives and adrenaline charged experiences have made them popular with diverse audiences, which naturally would include young women.

At 3RD sense we recently created an advergame for Nissan that we hope is another example of how content and gameplay can be tailored to the particular interests of a target market segment. The idea behind this game was to show how an extreme, outdoors model of car would complement an active lifestyle. In the game, characters ride snowboards down a valley, hurtling towards Nissan Xtrails parked by the finishing line. The game engages with its target audience because it is fun, has an unobtrusive soundtrack, is more graphically advanced than most other car games and above all, it gets the adrenaline pumping.

If we want to make successful games for the car industry, or any industry for that matter, we must be creative, take risks and move onto new things if our idea isn’t working. Above all, we should always tailor the gameplay and content to the target audience and objectives. If we’re not onto something good then we should get out of the drivers seat and find another ride.

Baby you can park my car

Here’s something odd: the latest phenomena to hit the casual gaming scene is parking cars. At last count, Millions of Games was tracking 20 of them, and the number keeps growing.

For me, parking the car is about as exciting as checking the mail and locking the door. It’s a fleeting inconvenience that almost goes unnoticed — certainly not something I’d expect to inspire a sensational game.

And yet, I was intrigued, so I tested my ability and was surprised by what I found:

• Parking: Battle of the Sexes challenged the notion of men being good with cars. Nice touches in this game included hazard lights that flash when you bumped another car.

• I also found myself losing track of time with Parking Perfection 2. It was encouraging when awards were given for top efforts.

• The puzzle idea behind Parking Zone was monotonous and fairly plain.

These games are infinitely more forgiving than trying to navigate a real car park. At least you can revise your efforts until you’ve done a good job without someone beeping, swearing or laughing at you.

My verdict: while the games could be fiddley and the sound was generally mundane, I had fun. I liked the fact that objectives were generally clear, and playing them was usually simple even when it was tough.

Let me know whether they do the same for you.

Dusting off a classic

Here at 3RD sense, Lightning Pool has been our most popular game by far. According to the UK television station Channel 4, it’s actually one of the world’s most popular casual games — coming in at number 3 overall on the day I wrote this post, and number 1 for sports games.

According to one school of thought, you shouldn’t touch the classics. Let them lie, it is argued, even when the times move on and they start to show their age.

We considered that option, but decided to take the opposite approach — dusting off this classic and giving it a new engine, fittings and duco.

Engine. We completely recreated Lightning Pool using the latest version of Flash.

In particular, we used a Flash technology called Shared Objects. This technology is a bit like web browser cookies in that it allows Flash to store data on the player’s own PC. Most of our 1.2 million users don’t register to play Lightening Pool, but with Shared Objects they will still be able to use features like our new medal tallyboard system, described below.

It’s worth noting that just like with cookies, the Flash user also has ultimate control over whether Shared Objects are stored on their PC. Just right-click (or on a Mac, control-click) on any Flash animation, select Settings and then click Advanced. This takes you through to the Flash Player Settings Manager web page. Select the Global Privacy Settings Panel, click the second tab, and then deselect “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer”.

Fittings. These range from new tricky levels to a new medal tallyboard system and to the addition of spin.

The new levels will include a ‘Ghost’ level, where some of the balls will let the others pass right through them, laughing maniacally, an ice hockey rink and a level inspired by the Playaholics game Jewel Thief.

Spin is one of the major new features and affects how the white ball behaves after it strikes a red or black ball. Without spin, the ball will stop after a collision. Using the arrow keys players can now create, top, back, left and right spin, enabling the white ball to travel forwards, backwards or in either direction after a collision. The advantages here are obvious for players, giving them the chance to place the white ball advantageously for their next shot.

Of course the game will still play without spin — it’s just an option we think many players will use and enjoy, especially when they reach the tougher new levels.

With the new medal tallyboard system, players will finish each level of Lightening Pool in either a bronze, silver or gold medal time. Players score points for each level and each medal. Thanks to our use of Flash Shared Objects, these points will grow from one play session to the next. As they play more and more, they’ll build up more medals and higher scores. We think this will be an interesting way of keeping players drawn in to the game.

Duco. Of course, this is the first thing you’ll notice. The whole game feels fresh and “of our time”, with completely new artwork.

Version two of Lightning Pool has everything that helped the original reach the top of the Channel 4 casual game charts, but with a range of new features that we hope will sustain its popularity in the years to come. Watch for Lightning Pool 2 on Playaholics, and let us know what you think.

The Little Gamer

5 ways to protect kids from junk food marketing

The (curiously named) Obesity Task Force has issued a report highlighting the massive hike in food companies’ activity that is now targeted towards children online and is discussed in detail in this Guardian article published yesterday.

Children are being targeted by junk food manufacturers through internet advertising, chatrooms, text messages and “advergames” on websites, an obesity watchdog warned yesterday, calling for global action to protect their health.

Self-regulation by the food industry has failed, according to a report from the UK-based International Obesity Task Force to a conference in Sydney, Australia. “New forms of advertising are increasingly being employed which bypass parental control and target children directly,” says the report by Tim Lobstein, coordinator of the taskforce’s childhood obesity group.

“These include internet promotion (using interactive games, free downloads, blogs and chatterbots), SMS texting to children’s cell phones, product promotions in schools and pre-schools and brand advertising in educational materials.”

It’s no surprise that self-regulation has failed - it never really stood a chance. It’s the corporate equivalent of the fad-diet. But perhaps what is surprising is how cynically some companies have moved to exploit the lack of ANY regulation governing marketing to children online. While the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is pressurising Ofcom to reduce the exposure of kids to junk food ads on TV (and with the support of the British Heart Foundation amongst others) there is clearly a need for a cross-media regulatory body with teeth - and nice, sharp, shiny white ones too.

Without an effective media neutral regulatory body, it’s left to the stakeholders - food manufacturers, media owners, digital agencies and parents - to figure out what’s fit for kids’ consumption. As an advergame creator, we have a responsible role to play in this process and it’s one we take seriously, but you can’t regulate successfully from the bottom up - this is what we have now and it clearly isn’t working so here’s my 5 alternative ways to protect children:

1. Manufacturers - make healthier food. So simple it’s brilliant! I have found that my kids *will* actually eat food that hasn’t been pumped to within an inch of it’s life with sodium, saturated fat and sugar.
2. Government - tax junk food. If they won’t take out the unhealthy bits, then add an ‘NHS surcharge’.
3. Parents - do your bit. Lead by example - explain what a bad diet can do. And figure out how the parental filters work on the pc.
4. Agencies - anticipate the regulations; they will come. Be more scupulous and exercise some sense of ethical propriety.
5. Sweden - move there. They’re just so much more grown up about these things.