Recently, our New Media team headed by JC Medina, New Media Director and our Editor-in-Chief, the one and only “Lord of the Blogs”, Kevin Codamon participated in the Philippine SNS conference held at the Hotel Intercon, Makati.

Our New Media team is responsible for all the advergaming that you see inside the game, Coke, Nestle, Jollibee and many more have been our partners. They’ve been hard at work to get more partners and introduce to traditional “brick-and-mortar” companies the value of online communities.

Meanwhile, reporter Alex Villafania of Inquirer interviewed the two head honchos to find out more about their take on SNS and of course, UGC (user generated content) and how it fits into gaming and our communities.

The video interview link after the jump.

Here’s the VIDEO INTERVIEW of JC and Kevin.

Meanwhile, check out these related articles

• Online Games and Social Networks
• Understanding Web 2.0

MSN reports that video games are likely to outsell sales of music, at least in the United States next year.

The report said that key growth sectors will include “online and wireless games, new-generation consoles and the burgeoning in-game advertising business.” That’s music to my ears (pardon the pun) since we here at Level Up are fast-tracking our advocacy on promoting our advergaming services.

The predictions are all part of the eighth annual edition of PwC’s “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook” report.

To quote; “By 2011, the worldwide gaming market will be worth $48.9 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1% during the five-year period, with gains slowing every year because of the maturation of the current generation of consoles, according to the report. The compound gains handily exceed the 6.4% advance that PwC foresees for the overall entertainment economy during the period.”

“Video gaming is one of the most exciting stories in terms of pure growth numbers,” said Marcel Fenez, PwC’s global managing partner for its entertainment and media practice.

And no, that’s not an MMORPG boss! That’s Marlyn Manson in the photo above

More after one more click…

In-game advertising will be a key spark for U.S. gaming revenue, growing from an estimated $80 million last year to $950 million in 2011, according to PwC. But Fenez signaled that this estimate could prove conservative as “advertisers like to reach the younger males” that many games tend to attract.

He also said that the overall gaming audience continues to expand and become somewhat more female and older than in the past thanks to casual games and the arrival as games as an “important part of culture.”

Via MSN

As the battle for CCU, paying players, better graphics and better gameplay rages on. Traditional brands are now looking forward to longer and lasting relationships with game developers and publishers.

Recently, in Austin, Texas, game developers converged for the Austin Game Developers conference and have concluded that there is, indeed, a huge opportunity for games to be seen as an advertising platform.

CNet reports that certain people have woken up to it,” said Chris Sherman, executive director of Virtual Worlds Management, who ran the conference’s precursor, the Austin Game Conference. “The consumer goods industry and the toy industry (and the) media have woken up (to the idea) that people can be more engaged in a game-type environment.”

Since 2003, we here at Level Up have anticipated the great opportunities in the field of Advergaming. In fact we have tied-up with great brands such as Coke, Yahoo, Nescafe, Penshoppe, Intel, Nokia and many others.

I already expounded about how big this market is likely to be and JC said that he and his team (New Media) are working on building awareness so that other companies can see the benefits of this. JC Medina is our hard-working director for New Media, the team in charge of coordinating with clients and developers on how best to create a “synergy” of their brands in ours.

In fact,  Nescafe has on ongoing campaign with us in games such as FlyFF and Freestyle.

We have the cute and lovely Gamer Babe Pam to thank for this.

Since Level Up wants to partner with non-game brands, we are choosing our new content (games) with this in mind. With a lot of new business models, new revenue streams and even game genres, it will be easier for our future clients to target which specific market they want to communicate their products to. Echoing this, CNet said in their report; “And given that the industry is experimenting with business models–subscription, ad-based and free, among others–consumers will likely find a game that fits the way they wish to pay for it.”

What began as a small, experimental avenue for advertising as an alternative medium, ads and ad placements in video games are slowly going into mainstream.

With the fusion of games and the Internet, the potential of “reach” makes advertisers’ eyes sparkle. And companies such as Massive Inc. are slowly carving a name for itself by being one of the pioneers of the game ad agency cum broker. Founded in 2003 and purchased by Microsoft last year, Massive has steadily grown into the industry leader in dynamic in-video game advertising, a technology that allows marketers to stream current and constantly updated ads directly into video games played online, either on a console or a PC.

More after the jump

Accroding to reportonbusiness.com; “Placing ads in games is not new but because newer game consoles can connect to the Internet the ads can be updated on the fly, turning what was a niche market into a staple of new ad campaigns. In the past, ads had to be hard-coded into a game, often months in advance. That meant short-term advertisers, like movie studios and television networks looking to promote coming attractions, didn’t see the medium as an option.”

But of course, the ads must be relevant. A Toyota ad is acceptable for a racing game or sports game. But you probably won’t see the same ad in games such as Neverwinter Nights, right?

“It first and foremost has to fit within the context of the game, if it doesn’t, it just sticks out like a sore thumb and the gaming community just rakes you over the coals for being a bunch of idiots,” said Cory Van Arsdale, CEO of Massive. “If you’re enhancing the user’s environment, you’re enhancing the value of the medium in terms of reaching that user.”

Massive is currently working with 50 game titles that will receive dynamic game content with more titles to be added soon.

Expect the number of ads to slowly ballon as you play an online game or plug your console into the web.

What I’d like to hear are your thoughts as a gamer. Will this “invasion” of commerce be good or bad to our hobby?

Sound off below. Thanks.

Ok… another video (just saw this again on inquirerdotnetvideos. Thanks, guys) and it’s an interview of our New Media Director, JC “cool-but-sure” Medina.

JC and his gang (Codamon and the lovely Pam, who’s a Perfect World addict now!) are busy trying to seek partners and show them the values of advergaming or, in our case, in-game advertising. Nestle/Nescafe have already invested into FlyFF and have quests inside the game specifically tailored for their brand.

Dim the lights please…

Yeah, you’ll notice that I’ve been blogging about stuff for FlyFF lately. I promised GM Atma that I’d be helping him promote version 8 to the community and through this property.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to congratulate him for doing a great job! The patch from V7 to V8 went uneventful and I’m happy to announce that starting yesterday, there’s a 2X EXP MOD on all FlyFF servers!!! Starting July 25 to Aug 1.

Anyways, do check out the new stuff of Version 8 in this trailer video from our official LUG Youtube Channel

It’s official!

Version 8 for FlyFF Philippines will patch today, July 25, 2007. To support this, we just finished a mini-presscon at the Mandarin Hotel over lunch.

Joining us for the launch of FlyFF Version 8 were our friends from the media. We also took this opportunity to introduce the advances of Level Up in the field of “Advergaming” with particular attention to Nescafe Quests we did for FlyFF.

Joining us for the event were Level UP COO Pet Syling, Brand Manager for FlyFF Wudie “GM Atma” Morales, New Media Director JC Medina, Marketing Director Jake San Diego, “Game Boss” (LUI COO) Ben Colayco, and yours truly.

(Left to Right): Ben Colayco, JC Medina, Pet Syling and Wudie Morales

More after the jump…

WHAT’S NEW WITH V8

Flyff v8, called “Heroes’ Rising” promises to get players even more engaged with challenging quests and all new adventures in crisp 3D animation and excellent graphics. The new patch comes with new game mechanics for the player vs player (PvP), duel system, and Guild War scenarios. This allows Flyffers to acquire some serious G’s in this patch. Wudie Morales, Flyff’s youthful Brand Manager (and known to FlyFFers as the popular GM Atma) says that “With Flyff version 8, Level Up is able to deliver overall gaming enhancements that will surely delight the inner child as well as the competitive player in everyone”.

GM ATMA – Wudie Morales

Some Dragon museum mechanics have been revised to be more challenging and to shell out more fulfilling rewards. The guild wars have become doubly intense as battle duration can now reach a maximum of 30 minutes. Each guild can also be resurrected up to six times which is twice more than the previous version. After half an hour of all out war, the victorious guild can enjoy ten guild war boxes containing rare items that improve their characters’ XP.

Be sure to check out the official website for FlyFF Philippines for more details

ADVERGAMING

During the presscon, we presented the company’s new media innovation dubbed as advergaming – a non-traditional advertising platform featured and carried by Level Up!’s market-leading game titles such as Ragnarok, Freestyle Online and Flyff.

Speaking before the media at the launch of Level Up’s Flyff V8, JC Medina, director for New Media of Level Up! Philippines, articulated the company’s plan of educating more companies about the benefits of targeting the rapidly growing market of online gamers. “We are glad that other companies are now recognizing the power of online games to tap into the youth market. We try to work with our partners so that we can personalize the level of interaction between their brand and our brands.” Medina said.

Medina also explained the mechanics as well as the major differences that set this new media innovation apart from traditional mediums such as TV, radio, print and billboards. With advergaming and in-game advertising, brands and their products can be made to look like they are actually integrated in the game. The brands that have already invested in Level Up!’s advergaming were customized to suit the setting and the over-all theme of their chosen game title.

Level Up International COO Ben Colayco also explained the phenomenon of the merger of non-game brands with games both here and abroad. “If you look at the business models of big online companies such as Yahoo and Google, most of their profits come from advertising. So, there’s nothing wrong with companies such as ours to explore this new opportunity. I’m excited about our initial forays into this field and I’m sure that the potential for growth will be huge.” Colayco said.

Meanwhile, our COO, Pet Syling who gave the opening remarks, welcomed our guests and told them that we are also celebrating our 5th year anniversary as a company as well as giving a primer on online games and MMORPGs.

Thanks to all our media friends who attended and thanks to our events team led by Joie B and for Patrick Pulumbarit (our jack-of-all-trades) for the cool pics!

Seeya inside V8!

GM T

PS. I’ll try to see if I can post the video of the V8 trailer today… ciao