Posted by Jeff Ignacio on May 17, 2008 under Business, Pop Culture | 
More and more I am becoming convinced that video games have become a cornerstone of not just ‘at home entertainment’ but as a cornerstone of entertainment. I am not a gamer myself so please don’t send me messages of being a gamer homer. I remember as a kid that video games were something I played after school and before I got out to play basketball before dinner. It was a short and sweet session of punching through blocks with Mario or Luigi. I was on shrooms’ back then: the ones that make you grow larger and allow your opponent to hit you just one more time before suffering a Goomba induced fatal would.
My buddy James directed me to this article on CNET showing GTA IV’s first week performance. $310M ONE DAY OPENING. $500M IN ITS FIRST WEEK. Is that not just ridiculous? I had a blog earlier on Iron Man’s stellar first weekend opening of ($100M). We are talking about 3x that in just one day for a gaming title. I will point out however that for every behemoth title or franchise like GTA, Halo, and Mario there will be a host of other titles that are your equivalent of Bennifer’s disastrous Gigli. It just boggles me.
GTA’s FIRST week of sales would rank it’s publisher Take-Two Games and its developer Rockstar Games (if they combined to become a ‘country’) to be 176th in GDP! They would have a higher combined gross domestic product than the following countries:
- East Timor ($472M)
- Comoros ($436M)
- Vanuatu ($421M)
- Samoa ($387M)
- The Gambia ($379M)
- Solomon Islands ($358M)
- Guinea-Bissau ($343M)
- American Samoa ($334M)
- Dominica ($268M)
- Federated States of Micronesia ($232M)
- Tonga ($219M)
- Cook Islands ($183M)
- Palau ($145M)
- Marshall Islands ($144M)
- São Tomé and PrÃncipe ($142M)
- Anguilla ($109M)
- Kiribati ($73M)
- Tuvalu ($15M)
- Niue ($10M)
That’s just ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as Gigli.
Posted by Jeff Ignacio on May 16, 2008 under Hobbies, Pop Culture |
Good film. Marvel Productions is really starting to hit their stride when it comes to the summer superhero category. Iron Man, their latest release, has done extremely well (posting over $100M in its opening weekend. I can’t say for certain that even Marvel would have thought Iron Man would reach this figure. Iron Man was one of the Marvel films I am sure to pick up in DVD. It was funny, action packed, and who can forgo seeing a brilliant and eccentric multi-billionaire in a suit bent on saving the world through targeted mass destruction?? Marvel has had its share of bad films (cough cough – the Fantastic Four series), but they do come through when I need them to (X2, Spiderman 2).
As an ode to Iron Man I’ve changed the wallpaper on my computer to the one below.
Can’t wait for the Incredible Hulk. I heard Marvel bought back the rights so they could make this one themselves independently. GOOD. At least now Marvel can only blame themselves if this film goes bust.
Posted by Jeff Ignacio on December 28, 2006 under Business, Pop Culture, Random Entries |
Currently I am reading Buzz Marketing by Mark Hughes. The book focuses on marketing strategies that help generate buzz. Buzz is the phenomenon of where people start conversations about a particular product or service. Phrases such as ‘You won’t believe this’ or ‘you have to check this out’ all are monikers of a buzzing conversation. The streets, television, magazines, and almost every type of medium you can think of are overexposing me, you, and everyone we know with advertising. Sure we ignore them, but every once in awhile you start to find that you can’t ignore all marketing.
Take the Nintendo Wii for example. Did someone tell you how great the Wii is? Perhaps it’s the limited supply of consoles and the feeling of exclusivity among its owners that has everyone else wondering what is so great about the Wii. The feeling of secrecy, the feeling of being in ‘the know’, and the fact that it is so damn hard to get one that help create its buzz.
Has anyone walked into Abercrombie lately? I remember a few years back when A&F was all the rage among young women. Ads were strewn with attractive, young, muscular Caucasian males. But recently A&F was forced into a settlement of $40 million dollars in a class action lawsuit (read more here). The claimants (African American, Asians, and women) who applied or had worked for A&F received settlement checks. Back to my point. Upon walking in you’ll notice the changes the firm has gone through to clean up its image. You’ll see your ocassional ethnic model set in front of a beach setting wearing A&F clothing. But more strangely you’ll hear the blasting volume of techno and trance music reverberating throughout the retail store.
When I close my eyes and hear the word Abercrombie I think of: White males & female models, plain colored clothing with a bird logo, and the beach. When I think of the beach and music I think of rock or punk music. So why is it that trance and techno is blaring out the store entrance? Is it to create buzz by saying ‘hey, we’re different now!’ I haven’t quite wrapped my head around this one just yet, but hopefully I will soon!
One last departing note as well: The Super Mario Brothers. Where in the world did a Japanese company come up with the idea to put two Italian brothers/plumbers to fight a world of giant lizards and two-footed mushrooms all in the middle of a bunch of Carribean-like video game music???? Geniuses!
