A breakout year for 3D

Posted in: Blog, Uncategorized by James on July 31, 2009

Yesterday Sky TV announced that it is to launch the UK’s first 3D TV channel in 2010. Hot on the heels of video sharing giant YouTube introducing 3D viewing options. And news that comes half way through a year already proving to be a breakout one for 3D movies on the silver screen.

So far we’ve had Monsters vs Aliens, Up, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Coraline and My Bloody Valentine. There are many more to come but the one we await with baited breat is Avatar, James Cameron’s first full length feature movie since oscar winning Titanic. Avatar is not only remarkable for the 4 years it has already been in production nor the $250m plus which has been budgeted, but primarily for the 3D camera technology which Cameron himself has helped to pioneer.

Cameron has been largely reponsible for influencing other Hollywood heavy-hitters, such as Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg to commit to a large number of 3D projects going forward. Indeed the Dreamworks studio has committed to producing all CG films in 3D and there are new releases planned over the next 6 months including  The Final Destination, re-releases of Toy Story 1 & 2, A Christmas Carol & Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Just as important from our point of view as these developments in movie making are the parallel advances in computer gaming. Big name game publisher Ubisoft is producing Avatar (the game) to go along with the movie -

Avatar is going to be the first 3D stereoscopic title in gaming history, and Cameron was very enthusiastic about the enormous potential he thought Ubisoft’s tie-in title would have. He promised that it would not just be a normal ‘movie game’, but rather an expansion of the franchise with new characters and a deeper exploration of the world than the film could provide.

If the game is as good as Cameron says it is, it’s could be a very big milestone in the history of gaming. We’ve been waiting a long time for a stereoscopic 3D game. Avatar has the potential to not just be a really entertaining game, but a ground-breaking one as well.

So, all-in-all a breakout year for 3D and proof that there’s no going back. 2009 will be remembered as the year that 3D stopped being a fad.

40+ virtual worlds with 1M+ users - kids

Posted in: Blog, Uncategorized by James on July 16, 2009

KZero is a wonderful source of statistics relating to virtual worlds. Thier lastest 32 page report on Kids, Tweens and Teens in virtual worlds includes overviews of many worlds in the sector as well as “strategies for success for both marketers wishing to take their brands in-world as well as companies considering developing worlds for these demographics.”

Socially Minded summarizes some of the other findings -

Kzero has measured all virtual worlds for kids and mapped them showing user age, length of existence and size of users. Nice.

So what is your precious under 15 year old doing these days (80% of all registered users of virtual worlds are teenages..). Habbo Hotel, the grand daddy of them all (and was a case study already inour book Communities Dominate Brands) is still the biggest, and now has 135 M users. Note that this is about 10% of all internet users. Are kids registered to play in the virtual playground of Habbo. Wow.

But they are not alone, no way (way! no way! Whey! No Wh-hey!). Neopets (average age 11) has 54 M users (Gosh, thats the size of the total population of Italy). Stardoll (age 15) has 34 M. Club Penguin (age 12) has 28 M. Wee World (14) has 27 M. And so it goes, Girl Sense, Nicktropolis, Whyville, goSupermodel, Spineworld etc etc etc. Millions and millions. Kids. All under the age of 15. Meanwhile Second LIfe you ask? Is biggest adult aged virtual world, smaller than all those, at only 19M users..