In June this year, Electronic Arts launched Spore Creature Creator, a $10 version of its Spore game. Then, from within the application, players could share videos of their creations by clicking a button and uploading to YouTube. The idea was to get buzz going about the game before its September launch. To date, more than 160,000 videos of Spore creatures have been uploaded. The most popular of these videos has been viewed 194,000 times. EA ran a contest on YouTube, including a link to buy the game online on the contest site. This is the latest way, YouTube helps monetise your videos directly. Read the rest of this entry »

The technology industry has taken some big hits in the current economy as consumers and businesses curtail spending. But one segment of the industry sees a silver lining to the downturn: video games. Really, you’d ask.

Game companies like Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox are claiming surge in sales and they’re aiming to capture business from people who are staying home more and looking for escapist forms of entertainment. “We really do believe that we are less susceptible to economic woes than, say, big ticket luxury items or a lot of different industries,” said Dave Roberts, CEO of PopCap Games, maker of the popular game series Bejeweled in an interview to US dailies. Roberts, like others in the game industry, said October to December were strong months for his company, despite the nation’s accelerating financial meltdown.  Read the rest of this entry »

At first, I didn’t get Twitter. The internet service allows users to write and send, via SMS or online, short (140 characters max) messages to a network of fellow Twitters, usually off-the-cuff updates describing what they are doing at the moment. I couldn’t see why anyone would want to have such insights into my life. However, slowly and surely, after getting enough emails from people who said they were following me on Twitter, I started using it again.

It would be safe to say that probably most of the country’s 40-odd million net users still don’t get Twitter, but 6 million do. That is, six million have signed up, according to ABI research reports, but concludes that “the number who use it regularly is much smaller.” Still, that’s not bad, considering it was launched in 2006, although as the report says, it didn’t really begin to take off until around March of 2007. Twitter continues to amaze, astound, or underwhelm and baffle, depending on your point of view. Most people, however Twitter to communicate with friends on the fly. In fact, during the tragic carnage in Mumbai, one writer acquaintance of mine used Twitter to get updates from friends who were texting while in hiding. Read the rest of this entry »

The iPhone continues to attract interesting applications, despite concerns about Apple’s rigid policing of its online App Store, and the latest highlights include a delightful software from online retailer Amazon. But according to various estimates (measured online), games dominate the league table of most popular premium (paid-for) iPhone apps. Read the rest of this entry »