BandwidthCamp

I was surfing around the gaming section of Facebook’s applications this week and came across a casual game by McDonalds. It reminds me of Diner Dash, which is one of the top casual games out there today. McDonalds has 1,319 daily active users playing their game, which is about 9% of the total amount of people who have installed the application.

The comment section is a mixed bag of people loving and hating the game. Ironically they are also allowing you to download the full screen game on their casual gaming site. I should give the game a spin and see how it works.

[update] It’s a parody - i.e. not a McDonald’s game. Note to self, always read the second paragraph in the fine print.

[Via McDonalds Game]

Last Friday the Playstation.Blog showed off some of the new ads for the PS3. Now that they are starting to actually air more TV ads with game content, might be in-game might not be, and show off what the system could/can do. I think things are starting to look better for Sony all around. I really love the second spot more then the first. I mean it has Assassin Creed in it after all.
Ad Spot One

Ad Spot Two

[Via Playstation.Blog]

GameIndustry.biz has their Thursday column devotes to crossover of in-gameads and video game

Early Advergames, part III at Kotaku. Who knew Cool Aid was so hip.

Gamecock co-founder Mike Wilson talks marketing over at Gamasutra

NBC has surfed it’s way into In-GameAds via an investment into IGA Worldwide last summer.

“What we’ve done is carve out a portion of our ad inventory for NBC to sell directly,” explains Justin Townsend, CEO of Manhattan-based IGA. “That relationship enables us to bring all the marketing power of the country’s largest TV network to bear and, of course, all the current relationships that it has with existing brands and agencies as well.”

IGA says it has already served over 150 ad campaigns, including such leading brands as Coca-Cola, Burger King, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Cingular, Nokia, and several of the large movie studios. The agreement with NBC Uni is its first reseller deal aimed at augmenting its direct sales force of 30 in the U.S. and Europe.

Now when is Fox, WB & ABC gonna join the table that’s In-GameAds.

[Via Hollywood Reporter]

GamesIndustry had a site down interview with AdSense for Games‘ Bernie Stolar. He’s the that convinced Google to buy AdScape.

‘If you look at research, there are more people playing games than watching television. So what does that tell you? That tells you there’s a whole different audience,” Stolar said.

“The demographics have changed. So the rules have changed.”

It’s a great quick read and sheds some light on the whole Google AdScape purchase. 2008 is looking to be a better year then 2007 for gaming overall.
[Via GamesIndustry News & Interview]