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> I was reading this article about millenials based on research done by MTV Networks. A lot of their conclusions are stated in my book ‘A Brand New Playground (www.brandnewplayground.com) and I summarized the essence of their study below: 


 Half of Millennials said “People my age see real life as a video game” and almost 6 out of 10 said “#winning is the slogan of my generation” (certainly #epic_fail seems to have become their anti-slogan!) 


Principle #1: Play fair or you are “fair game” (What I call ‘Be Righteous’ in my book): these days you can’t bullshit your customers anymore. Be real and be fair and don’t try to cheat you customer into bad (poor quality) – overpriced – products. 


Principle #2: Leverage the leaderboard  
People are always interested in ‘how they’re doing’ compared to others. A leaderboard shows your position compared to other players and MTV links this to ‘wanting to know’ what price we pay for products and whether that price is fair. The internet is of course an easy way to compare prices. 


Principle #3: Smart-cuts, not short-cuts 
Gaming evokes intrinsic motivation to reach objectives. It’s very interesting that in games we tend to search for ‘work arounds’ to achieve the same goal in many different ways where as in real-life most employees are used to do the same routine every day and actually are afraid to change their behavior because it might have a different result (or at least it creates uncertainty). 


Principle #4: Deliver dopamine/adrenaline fixes


Half of respondents in the MTV study — perhaps those more prone to Millennial micro-boredom — believe that “life can be less stimulating than gaming.” The complementary game dynamic we found fascinating was “positive randomness” — if a game is too predictable, it is boring, but if there are too many random surprises, it is too complex. 


This can be explained by looking at the ‘flow’-model where we continuously balance between frustration and boredom using the skills available to us to fight challenges we face… this is the same in real-life, which I will explain in my next book ‘The Game of Life’. 

Principle #5: Hand over that joystick. 


Millennials are accustomed to having a voice, and having it heeded. And they’re frustrated when big corporations don’t give them a voice or a true “role” as a consumer in the game. In a game the player is always ‘in control’ (at least so it seems….). Instead of just sending advertising into the world brands should start a dialogue and start listening to their consumers and accept that THEY (consumers) are in control of our brands, not the marketing department…. 


 Read the full article here.

>Just to be disruptive a Dutch subject title today. It says: ‘A Brand New Playground’ almost sold out!

Of course I am referring to the Dutch version of my book. The first edition almost sold 1.500 copies so far in 15 months time. According to my publisher Kluwer this is good result for a book in such a niche-market that was written for Marketing Managers of which there are maybe 10.000 in The Netherlands. So I already sold my book to 10% of the market potential, which is excellent penetration! There are about 300 copies left, so if you want to get a hold of your copy of the ‘eerste druk‘ (first release), order it here: www.bol.com or here www.managementboek.nl It – generally – is rated with 4 out of 5 stars – so don’t take my word for it. If you send me a picture of yourself reading the book I will even hand sign it for you (Dutch residents only ;-)!

This is a Dutch review of the book in 2010 by Management Boek.nl
This is a Dutch review of the book in 2010 by Max Kohnstam:

The English version is still available for free through www.brandnewplayground.com

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During one of my presentations recently in the United Kingdom some one asked me how many game developers there are in the world. In my book I made an estimate that there would be at least 60.000 different kinds of boxed games available in the world since the beginning of the games industry in 1974. I wrote that in the beginning of 2009. Soon I learned that there were about 200.000 apps available for iPhone and that 70% of all downloaded apps are games (this was end 2010). The past year Android and Windows 7 phones have proven to become new ‘handheld’ gaming devices as well and with 500 million downloads for Angry Birds and a few million on WordFeud one can conclude gaming is mass-market. But still … how many game developers are there globally woud you think? I said that I know there were about 20 big publishers in the world amongst them of course the ‘console-owners’ Microsoft, Nintendo and PlayStation, EA, Ubisoft, Activision and many others. But then – what is Steam? Is it a distributor, retailer or publisher? What is iTunes? Retail or publisher? What is Facebook, what is Google+ … a gaming platform or a game publisher? It directly connects content with consumers so in that case it seems to be a publisher… ?

I just read a report on gamastura that there are over 750.000 registered game developers using Unity. 750.000 !!! Of which 200.000 are monthly active and releasing new games on a regular basis. These games are mostly web-based (or iOs / Android).

Read the article about Unity here: www.gamasutra.com

So how many game developers are out there…? I honestly don’t know! And should we care? There are a lot, good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones, small and big. The only thing I hope is that game developers still start their companies with a burning desire to make great games instead of ‘just’ making money.
I recently held a presentation for students in Amersfoort and I really hope that they remember my first rule of entering this industry: do so because it is your passion, you love playing games and love making them! Don’t enter this business to make money, because you will be disappointed and will never make it through your first three years. If you do everything you do with passion and dedication there is no doubt you will be successful, depending on how you define success of course 😉

I guess life is not about quantity (how many) but always about quality (how well).

So be well – Be passionate!

If you would like to be game developer one-hunder-and-twentythree-thousand, check this blog first: http://www.gamedev.net/ 

>Introducing Morten Geertsen – one of my new Bloggers to the Gaming & Branding Universe! This is his first article: a summary of a paper about the effect of serious gaming!

Here’s the article:

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This is an example of one of the first ‘virals’ ever! We used to share this stuff on floppy disks!

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NERD ALERT – NERD ALERT!

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Via: OnlineEducation.nettarget=”_blank”

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Tokyo gets its own Getaway.

The alternate reality game, in which smartphone users ‘hunt’ and then hold onto a MINI and win the real car if they are successful, is credited with doubling MINI sales in Sweden last year. You can ask yourself whether that was all thanks to this game, but still – doubling your sales sounds remarkable! Especially with a game concept that asks quite a lot from your users. In Holland Volkswagen did the same in 2009 / 2010 with Pak de Polo… (Catch the Polo), he or she that spotted the car could take it over by stopping the driver and getting into the car. The one that got to drive the car the longest of all contestants (in KM) during the month the game was played, won the car. 

Although the Japanese version works similarly as the version in Sweden (Stockholm), it is on a much larger scale; the Tokyo gaming area is almost 32 times larger, at 240 square miles. The app has also been made available for Android as well as iPhone. The campaign goes live on December 3 and runs for nine days. For more information go to: creativity online

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