E-Commerce Blog

Facebookers hoping to get in on a game of Scrabulous on Tuesday were left disappointed. Instead of linking to the game, designed by brothers Rajat and Jayant Argarwalla for play on the Facebook social networking platform, players found the following message: “Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.” The message appears to indicate that that the reign of Scrabulous has come to an end.

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Facebook Scrubs Scrabulous

Online poker is becoming more and more popular in Germany. As a result, the country’s strict legal restrictions on gambling are under pressure, and Germany may soon have to open its protected markets to private online poker providers. Currently, private online poker operations violate the new German Interstate Lottery Treaty, in force since January 2008. According to the Lottery Treaty, gambling licenses are only granted to institutions or companies that are under control of the German Federal State.

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Skill or Chance? The Case for Online Poker in Germany

Attracting and retaining fans are the keys to success in the crowded and competitive online games industry. The Net’s growing multimedia communications capabilities are providing not only games developers but businesses of every size and stripe a vastly richer yet less structured environment for CRM; something game developers and distributors are very much aware of and keen to plug into. The emergence of massively multiplayer online games presents online games developers with unparalleled opportunities to reach an audience of primarily young, highly motivated fans.

Credit:
CRM for the Video Game Industry: Tough Crowd

Michael Hollick isn’t really a Balkan criminal — he just plays one in a video game that happens to be one of the fastest-selling ever, generating at least $600 million in sales over the last three weeks. Yet while Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto IV” has enjoyed its wild success, Hollick — an actor who plays Niko Bellic in the game — hasn’t benefited from the extra sales. He was paid just $100,000 over 15 months or so between late 2006 and early 2008 for providing Bellic’s voice and body-motion work, but that was it — no royalties or residuals were built into his contract.

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‘GTA IV’ Star Bemoans Lack of Royalties for Game Actors

There’s no Burger King tie-in or special flavor of Mountain Dew. No commercial directed by Peter Jackson, or even an action figure. The run-up to “Grand Theft Auto IV” has been considerably less ballyhooed than last year’s over-the-top “Halo 3″ debut. Yet when “GTA IV” parks on store shelves on April 29, the latest entry in the controversial video game franchise could be the most lucrative launch in entertainment history — and one that many people may not even know about.

Excerpted from:
‘GTA IV’ Primed for Burnout Sales Despite Mum Marketing Campaign