Medialoper

Chasing the long tail of new media

Games

A Sneak Peek at Some Upcoming Editions of Rock Band

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It’s a given that the upcoming Rock Band: The Beatles, is going to be a huge, huge success, and the hope is that it will simultaneously spur both the gaming and music industries. Which is why many many more bands are jumping on the Rock Band, er, bandwagon.

Yesterday, on Twitter, of all places, it was revealed that artists such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, U2, and The Rolling Stones all have editions in the pipeline. Naturally, each version has its own idiosyncrasies, based upon the artist to which it is dedicated. Since a lot of you still aren’t on the Twitter, I thought that I would give you a sneak peek at what you can expect when you buy some of the upcoming special editions of Rock Band.

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That’s What I Like: Fantasy Baseball

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My Fantasy Baseball Trophy ShelfSo, I was reading this King Kaufman column in Salon last Monday. He was talking about ESPN’s broadcast on Jackie Robinson Day, and was relating a story that Henry Aaron was telling a story about playing second base against Robinson and — wait a second, Hank Aaron played second base?

That was Kaufman’s reaction, and mine as well, but for totally different reasons. He was just interested in it as a baseball historian, and so looked it up. And sure enough, Aaron played games as a second-bagger for the Braves as late as the mid-1960’s.

Me, all I can think is this: Hank Aaron had fantasy eligibility at 2B! How cool would that have been for my fantasy baseball team!

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Second Life, Sony, and Suzanne

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Suzanne Vega, Journey, and Aimee the Scary Blowup Doll.My initial reaction was you have GOT to be shitting me, followed closely by huh. that kinda makes sense. That’s been my chain of response to most everything about the online virtual world thingy Second Life thus far, from the basic concept to its immense popularity to the gazillions of dollars spent on it daily to the notion that for many users it’s just high-bandwidth cybersex to the fact that major brands are establishing a marketing presence there. That it even qualifies as a “there” is troubling, but according to consensus reality, it exists. And where people go, they will be sold to. Certainly advertising in video games is nothing new, dating at least back to the Marlboro ads in Pole Position II. The blatant promotion of cigarettes to ten year-olds (as opposed to the comparatively more subtle Joe Camel approach) has that certain early-eighties charm, doesn’t it?

So after a momentary incredulousness, I realized the lack of shock value that the allegedly beleaguered music industry (whose tolerate/hate relationship with the internet is probably the most well-documented struggle since World War II) is attempting to get a piece of the virtual pie’s very real money, in such forms as the imaginatively named Sony Music Media Island. In Second Life parlance, an island is the same thing as in meatspace: a mass of land surrounded by water. The owner can do pretty much whatever they want with it, allowing for the fulfillment of more than a few fascist fantasies. Rule your vampire clan while sitting at your computer in a bathrobe! We may not have flying cars, but the Future’s still pretty great.

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PS3 Crime Wave Sweeps America – Anarchy In The Streets!

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PS3 RiotSay what you will about Microsoft’s Zune launch, it didn’t cause anywhere near the death, destruction, and sheer mayhem that yesterday’s PlayStation 3 launch caused. Reports of shootings, thefts, and generally stupid behavior are flooding in from across America. The details make a George Romero film seem tame by comparison. We have apparently become a nation of PlayStation Zombies.

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Microsoft Goes The Last Few Feet

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We rag on Microsoft a lot around here. Zune, particularly, has come in for a lot of pre-sale criticism from these quarters. So we should praise them when they do something right. And today’s announcement that they have set up a deal with several studios to offer downloads directly to their Xbox Live service in just a couple of weeks smacks a whole hell of a lot of doing things right.

It’s an idea that only those who instinctively dislike everything Microsoft does could hate.

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Rushing For Gold

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Never let it be said that Medialoper stood in the way of anyone’s potential riches. Apparently, Mark Burnett’s much-anticipated* multi-media game, Gold Rush has debuted. You can play along by heading for http://goldrush.aol.com/.

I tried to go through the registration process — after a bunch of time-outs and wonky screen resets, I gave up (I do have a screen name and password; AOL recognizes these as valid, the game does not. Yet.). You may have better luck. Note to AOL: You might want to add Gold Rush to your A-Z directory, possibly under, hmm, “G”. Because after going through the registration process, I wanted to get started. I’ve given up.

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More Politicians In The New World

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It’s no secret that we get really excited about the little things here at Medialoper, especially the bright and shiny things. So when I caught wind of potential presidential candidate Mark Warner (he’s now running the State of Virginia) appearing in Second Life, my first thought was (and I quote), “Huh?”

It was quickly followed by “Hmm, interesting.” Things moved rapidly to “Cool!” before I had a chance to refill my coffee. That’s the Internet for you, always moving at the speed of the mind.

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6 Books You Should Read Right Now If You Wanna Get Some Insight Into This Whole “New Media” Thingy

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Wanna know the philsophical underpinnings of some of our posts here at Medialoper? (I’ll pretend you said “yes.”) The following books have helped me work out some of the concepts that infuse nearly everything that I write about what we are calling the “new media.”

Here they are, alphabetical by author:

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Virtual Worlds; Real Products

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Product placement is nothing new, of course: since the earliest days of film, advertisers have always wanted to work their brands into the context of the entertainment people were enjoying. So in today’s world where a significant demographic isn’t watching a film or TV, but pursuing other entertainment options, it’s no surprise that the latest frontier for the product placement is the videogame.

What is surprising, however, is that it has only really taken off in the last year or so. Naturally, the rise of online games means that placements don’t have to be embedded in take-home boxes, only to become immediately anachronistic, but things such as movie advertisments on billboards or marquees can change as new films come out.

It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure, before they start trying to target ads to other information they have gleaned from a particular player’s profile. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before a savvy game maker has an online user choose, for example, their background music from various bands, and then having that music come out of, say, a Prism Durosport.