Experience Manifesto

Project Natal - MS Brings Motion Control to XBox 360

The long rumored motion controller for the XBox 360 was announced yesterday and so far everyone seems pretty psyched with it. Much like our AudienceGames In-Cinema Experience, they are using motion capture to make you the game controller. Of course, Project Natal is a lot more advanced then what we've been doing in cinema, where we have look at a whole audience of people, and they also added facial & voice recognition, which should add some really cool experience options to what they're doing.

We're just at the beginning of see a entirely new way to engage the computer, in this case for gaming. After all, the QWERTY keyboard that we use today was really created back in the late 1800's and it really is time for a new interface. And in terms of games, both at home and in arcades, this kind of technology will continue what Wii started by bringing in people who might not have been game players before, as well as create new forms of game experiences that we haven't even thought of yet.

Remember, if you want to learn about multitouch, you can join us tomorrow night at Multitouch Maven at the Clo Wine Bar at the Time Warner Center at 7.

Looking around this morning, here's some of the coverage Project Natal received:

Dave Rudden over at GamePro got a demo of Natal and wrote about it at Preview : Milo, Burnout, and Balls: Body-on with Project Natal [Xbox 360] - from GamePro.com.

My first taste of Natal was Ricochet, the hyper-active block-breaking game, demoed by the face of Natal and former Fight Night developer, Kudo Tsunoda. Kudo gave us a brief intro and showed us the ropes before letting the press serve up some damage. I didn't quite get as active as the hyperactive Microsoft employee, or even the surprisingly nimble Kudo, but my first taste of Natal served as proof-this device works. It recognized how far I was from the TV, and limb and head movements were almost instantaneously recognized on TV. Plus, the game once again rocked Ratatat on the soundtrack-they're a very gaming-influenced instrumental band that are definitely work checking out.

CNET has a good overview of both what it can do and the challenges that Microsoft faces in getting Natal to the masses at Microsoft's Project Natal: What does it mean for game industry? | Gaming and Culture - CNET News.

So is Project Natal Microsoft's answer to the Wii-mote?

"And beyond, yeah," said Forrester principal analyst Paul Jackson. "Obviously, we've all got, in the game industry...a huge debt to pay to Nintendo for shaking things up a bit with the Wii, and for moving beyond the 37 button controller. This is taking things to the next extreme. Because even with the Wii, you still have (several) buttons, start and select. It's still a physical controller."

Added Jackson, Project Natal looks likely to "remove that final barrier between you sitting in your room and...what's on your screen."

They also got a good quote from Steven Spielberg:

"I've been asking the crucial question: how can interactive entertainment become as approachable as other forms of entertainment?" Spielberg said. "The vast majority of people are just too intimidated to pick up a video game controller...Despite the size of (the video game) industry, still 60 percent of households do not own a video game console...The only way to bring interactive entertainment to everybody is to make it invisible." (BTW, here's what I said in '95 -- The first lesson for using any technology in marketing, he says, is to make the technology invisible and work on the content, not forgetting that people like to have fun. Not only do I sometimes look like him, I'm just as smart, damn it!)

Matt Peckham said Microsoft's No-Controller "Natal" Steals the Show - PC World. He continued:

What we saw today was unprecedented: True 1-to-1 motion tracking. Wave your arm and your onscreen avatar follows you precisely. Bend, yoga-like, to form cute animal shadow-shapes and a silhouetted image on a virtual canvas curls and contorts picture-perfectly. Shift toe-to-toe, tennis-like, anticipating objects hurled your way and whatever algorithms are intelligently sorting behind the scenes recognize your intentions, filtering out flailing limbs or ignoring unnecessary maneuvers.

Robert Winters has a good overview of how it works at Project Natal, how it could work and it's worth a quick review if you'd like to see some speculation about the technology and the various components involved.

They were equally as excited over at Gizmodo - Xbox 360 Project Natal: Full-Body Motion Control One-Ups the Wii - Project Natal, where they said:

What makes this so damned cool is that it lets you do more than just play games with it. You can also move through menus by swiping your hands back and forth. The camera allows for fun features like facial and voice recognition. When you have it running, your Xbox will recognize your face and sign you in automatically.

You can start to imagine the possibilities already. Everything from Minority Report style menu control to Dance Dance Revolution games that require you to actually dance rather than just hit buttons to videoconferencing in your living room, the thing just feels like the future. And it already makes the Wii seem like a gimpy and outdated piece of tech. There's no way it can touch what this will do.

Xbox.com | Project Natal.

Project Natal: amazing Xbox 360 controller-free gaming (E3) - Computerworld Blogs.

Microsoft announces "Project Natal" motion controller for Xbox 360!.

Kotaku - Spielberg: Natal Changes The Way I Write For Games - E3 2009. E3 2009: Microsoft's No-Controller "Natal" Steals the Show - PC World.

Procrastineering - Project blog for Johnny Chung Lee: Project Natal.

Microsoft's 'Project Natal' Is Vaporware, At Least Until Their E3 Booth Opens (MSFT).

Experience Manifesto: Is AudienceGames a Social Media?.

QWERTY - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Clicks Or Mortar? at the Pixel Palace

I have a degree in theater and, although I haven't performed in a lot of years, I'm still very curious about how all of these emerging & interactive technologies will impact the role and position of performances. I was a children's theater person, so a lot of the work I did was called participatory in theater language, but what it meant was that there were elements of the show where we expected the children to help move the story along. 

But as we've seen in movie theaters for quite some time, people don't really know how to be an audience any more.  First, you're sitting there in the theater, minding your own business and someone sits down next to you.  You kick off the "elbow waltz, that dance you do to stake out your spot on the arm rest.  Then, as you're trying to watch the movie and the person next to you is on their cell phone talking about their plans for after the movies.  Everyone talks through out the movie (and I don't mean yelling "Don't open that door" to the people in the movie), they're talking to one another.  They're watching a movie like they're in their living room.  This isn't how I was taught be an audience member.

But what happens when the expected level of interactivity moves to other performing environments?  Can everything be interactive?  Don't we sometimes just want to go to the theater and see a really great performance without being asked to twitter ideas to the cast?  Should there be a vote as to whether or not Lady Macbeth kills herself?  Should we vote with the jury of 12 Angry Men?  Should we be expected to play musical instruments on our iPhone at the end of The Music Man?  Wait, that one may actually be a cool idea!  And how does a playwright create content where everything is interactive?  Is there a playwright at all?  (Wow, I'm pretty old school, looking at that list of shows, eh?)

Now, I'm not suggesting that we can't create new mediums from the old, where we add interactivity & audience participation to the mix.  That can work really well.  But when even members of Congress can't stop Twittering and pay attention to what the President is saying, what are we saying to our future audience goers?  

So, I was really interested in this conference happening this week in the UK and certainly wish I could've attended.  I think it's a really fascinating conversation and I love the exploration.  Look at some of the questions they're asking:

• How important are buildings in the digital world? Do we really need to preserve, extend or build cultural spaces or should we let them fade away as we move online?
• If we are to have cultural buildings and cultural spaces, who will decide how they are used and what they contain? Do we want to leave this to the 'wisdom of the crowds' or is there still a role for curators, programmers and other gatekeepers?
• Should cultural buildings try to compete with the home cinema/gaming experience? And if so, how - are the pleasures to be gained online essentially individualist, or can we share them?

Those are pretty big questions if you're job is to run a place like Lincoln Center. But it will also have a real impact on the content that's created, as we try to figure out the right mix of audience involvement.

And from a brand POV, what's the opportunity here?  We talk a lot about branded content, but it's almost all limited to the screen - movie or TV.  Is there a place for live, branded entertainment in our physical places?  Improv Everywhere has done some cool things in public, although I'm not sure they've done it as a sponsored event yet.  But take a look at the 2 videos below and see what you think.  Would you mind if that happened at a place by you, even if it was sponsored by a brand?  Sure, we don't want that every where you go, but it would certainly take the monotony out of a lot of things we do today.

But nothing they're doing is interactive right now, in the true, interactive sense.  Can you improv in a space with everyone there?  What's the process and interface for interacting?  And is there a democracy for participating or are some kind of filters used?

I know that there aren't any answers yet, but I'm sure happy to see that someone has started asking the questions.

Clicks Or Mortar? takes over the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne to explore the potential of digital media in a cultural building. Across three days the Tyneside will present a vast range of work by artists, gamers and filmmakers and on Friday 6 March will host a symposium for cultural creatives, thinkers and planners that will debate the role and challenge the relevance of cultural bricks and mortar buildings in tomorrow’s digitized and networked artistic practice.

Digital technology is already turning some cultural cinemas into spaces that can host an ever widening range of cultural product, from live opera to the National Theatre and an ever expanding diet of participative activity from interactive artists and computer gamers. This digital wave is also crashing over theatres, arts centres, galleries and all other cultural venues, proposing new forms of performance and, most significantly, engaging audiences who may well be turning from passive consumers of culture into active participants in its creation and distribution.

The Pixel Palace. 

View the video at Sangent

Orange Involves Concertgoers

A few weeks ago, Clilly had the chance to bring AudienceGames to Royal Albert Hall for the Orange RockCorps concert. We played opening act to Busta Rhymes, the Guillemots, John Legend, Feeder and others. Overall, it was a pretty cool gig for us.

What BEL wanted to achieve, aside from creating a fun environment, was to see if the technology compelled people to play, which it did, said Castiglia. "So that was a real win on our part. And it was nice to see that even in such a large environment, the technology still resonated because the screen allowed everybody to feel like they were a part of the experience," she said.

Jodie Fisher, account director at M&C Saatchi, which worked on the project on behalf of Orange, emphasized the carrier's new brand vision launched earlier this year in several markets, "Together we can do more." The positioning was "born from the insight that people can achieve more working together than they can on their own," said Fisher.

The agency was challenged to make the brand live and breathe through sponsorship, to underscore to Orange customers what the brand represents. "Sponsorship is a good way to bring the brand vision to life, because it often involves experiences where people come together and can actually provide a real proof point for that vision. The human joystick exemplifies what 'Together we can do more' stands for," Fisher said.

Link: Orange Involves Concertgoers.

Some New AudienceGames Videos

There are two new video's about Audiencegames that we wanted to share. The first one is from our presentation during the SAWA session at Cannes (see MyDigitalCinema: Future of cinema advertising in Cannes for the full post) earlier this summer. Nothing like watching a group of jaded ad industry folks really having fun with AudienceGames!

The second is from my recent interview with Ad Age about the future of interactive cinema.

Volvo Wins Bronze Media Lion

We were pretty busy last week and I should've posted this then, but hey, better late then never! We're very excited that our work for Volvo won a bronze Lion at Cannes and continues to show the power of creating a cool, compelling experience. And given the competition for cool things at Cannes this year, we're very honored that the first project we had at Cannes actually won a medal! Congrats to the team at Nitro, Mindshare, Carlton Screenvision and, of course, Volvo for all of their work to make this program happen.

Innovative Media Strategy:
As well as experiential and social networking, cinema provides a live and exciting media creation of Volvo's Global strategy of togetherness. This first ever in-cinema game provides a fun and unique way to bring this to life and help consumers share a happy, positive experience together.

Creative Execution:
Using motion sensors cinema audiences became willing human joysticks where their movements controlled the action in a game on the screen. The more they worked together, the better they handled the Volvo in the Cinema Driving Game. Living proof of Volvo's Global positioning: Life is better lived together. 12 cinemas across the UK we're given the chance compete against each other. This live event made history being the first time cinemas had ever competed together anywhere in the world. The enjoyable event generated incredible PR, prompting Brand Week magazine to name it one of the top creative ideas of 2007.

Target Audience:
Please watch the case study to see how the media idea was received by the audiences taking part.

Effectiveness:
The event generated massive press interest. The event was featured in over 40 separate articles in press and online commending the world's first live interactive cinema gaming experience. This idea was showcased in the UK and is now being considered by Volvo's Global Markets.

Link: Cannes Lions 2008.

MyDigitalCinema: Future of cinema advertising in Cannes

Barry & Clilly went to Cannes this year (while I was in Denver, not sure I got the better end of that deal!) and presented AudienceGames during the Sawa - Screen Advertising World Association session on Monday afternoon in Cannes. As usual, it was a big hit and I understand that almost everyone in the audience played. This session generated a lot of discussion with cinema companies around the world and I hope that you'll see a global AudienceGames network in the future!

For the fourth year in a row I had the fun and pleasure of moderating the SAWA (Screen Advertising World Association) seminar at the Cannel Lions Festival on advertising, this year called 'Cinema - the Medium where all ideal look big.'

This year we looked at interactive advertising, courtesy of the interactive 'human joystick' game created by Brand Experience Lab. We also looked at 3D advertising in cinemas, including Red Bull from UK and Superbock and Vodafone from Portugal.

All-in-all 470 people attended the session and we had to turn away some 150 unhappy late comers. Once again it was the single most well attended event of the Cannes Lions.

Link: MyDigitalCinema: Future of cinema advertising in Cannes.

Marketing at the Movies - Advertising Age - Ad Age Events

I'll be presenting at the Ad Age Marketing at the Movies program this Tuesday in Chicago if anyone's going to be there. We'll be doing a demo of AudienceGames in addition to a presentation about the future of in-cinema as we see it. Holler if you're going to be there!

Link: Marketing at the Movies - Advertising Age - Ad Age Events.

Around the Web: Ad Age Digital Conference Coverage - Advertising Age - Digital

Yea, we had a lot of fun with the audience during our presentation! It's the cool thing about playing with cool toys is that we always have a lot of fun with the audience. Nothing like getting 300 or so jaded ad folks to hoot, holler and laugh to prove the point that we just need more fun in our lives! Unfortunately, in the rush to get set up, I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures of the audience playing, but if I find any, I'll be sure to get them up online!

David Polinchock's audience games presentation, in which the conference attendees collectively played pong on the big screen, was a huge hit. So were his tweets from the event. Last summer his Brand Experience Lab launched these interactive audience games in theaters as entertainment before a movie starts. He announced yesterday that they were rolling out a pilot program with National CineMedia and, if successful, will bow audience games in the top 20 markets on about 750 screens. Good news for bored movie goers everywhere.

Link: Around the Web: Ad Age Digital Conference Coverage - Advertising Age - Digital.

NATIONAL CINEMEDIA TO TEST AUDIENCEGAMES™

Wahoo, we can finally make the official announcement! As you can see by the release below, we've entered into an exclusive partnership with National CineMedia and once we complete the test, we'll begin rolling it out to the top 20 markets on about 750 screens.

What's makes it so exciting to us is creating a new kind of social media, one that truly bring the power of the people into the experience. (See Experience Manifesto: Is AudienceGames a Social Media? to read some more thoughts on this.) Additionally, we'll be able to work with a number of partners to see what happens when you need to create content for a large group of people who only have a short time to play. It's actually a pretty difficult game design challenge!

We'll be writing a lot more about our progress, so keep checking back to see how we're doing. And look for AudienceGames to be in a theater near you later this year! Remember, you can go to Brand Experience Lab -- AudienceGames In-Cinema Experience for additional information or to see video from our first two programs. We'll have a dedicated AudienceGames web site up in the near future.

National CineMedia and Brand Experience Lab have entered into an exclusive partnership to bring AudienceGame™ interactive gaming to the big screen. The new relationship provides for a test program to ensure seamless integration of the Brand Experience Lab proprietary gaming technology into National CineMedia’s FirstLook digital entertainment and advertising pre-feature program. If the pilot program is successful, a broader rollout into select theatres in the top 20 DMAs will be completed.

Brand Experience Lab’s AudienceGame is a kind of “advergame” which is played by theatre audiences moving together to act as a “virtual joystick” to control the gaming elements on the big screen. Brand Experience Lab has designed and produced custom cinema AudienceGames for clients including MSNBC.com in the USA and for Volvo in UK, receiving international acclaim and generating up to 70% unaided recall with audiences.

Through FirstLook, the Lobby Entertainment Network (LEN) and other promotional products, National CineMedia provides advertisers with bundled offerings of on-screen and lobby marketing products that provide multiple ways to interact with theatre patrons. National CineMedia operates the largest digital in-theatre network in North America, the Digital Content Network (DCN)SM, which allows for the targeted distribution of advertising and content to specified auditoriums and lobby areas within its network of more than 1,200 AMC Entertainment Inc., Cinemark USA, Inc., Regal Entertainment Group and other network affiliate movie theatres, including over 13,200 digital screens nationally. Beginning later in 2008, Loews theatres will also become part of the NCM network bringing its reach to approximately 16,500 screens nationwide.

Is AudienceGames a Social Media?

We were having a conversation at the office today about whether or not we could call AudienceGames (you can click here if you're not sure what I'm talking about) a social media. I know it probably doesn't fit the current definition of social media, but I had some good reasons for thinking it should be included in the social media discussion.

For one thing, it is a media, right? It usually falls under the advergaming category, sometimes the OOH grouping, but it's always media. Right there up on the big screen.

And it's certainly social. Hell, the game doesn't really play if there's only one person in the theater. Well, technically it does, but it sure isn't fun. If you've played AudienceGames or seen some of the video, you know what I mean. A group of people, in a social setting (the movie theater) playing a game. And let me tell you, when the audience is really into playing the game, you can feel the social energy in the room. In fact, I played AudienceGames at a conference in Amsterdam and someone come up to me that night at dinner to tell me how much the room changed, with a new energy and socialness in the room after we played the game.

Look at how AgencySpy talked about it:

It incorporates so many of the trends we babble on about here at AS. Let's see, there's gaming. Check. There's community. Check. There's new technology. Check.

So, if I'm right, when we complete the initial AudienceGames installation of 750 screens later this summer, we will have one damn big, social media network. And here's the cool thing. That network will be in front of the 33 million people who buy tickets in those theaters.

And this is where it got interesting to me. Most social networks tell you how many people sign up, but not how many people drop out or just stop using it. There's no figure for "churn." I haven't really been to my Facebook or myspace page since I set it up, but I'm still a registered user. But I'm far from an engaged user. So, do I really have value to advertisers? I'd say no.

But, when people come into the movie theater and experience AudienceGames, they're an engaged audience. Actively engaged. In fact, during the two month msnbc.com test, over 90% of the people we surveyed played the game and we had a 71% unaided recall rate. That's engagement, not just membership. And as we expand, our active, engaged user base goes up a lot! I mean, if we end up on just 5,000 (out of NCM's 17,000+ total) screens, that would give us an estimated audience of over 200 million. Active users.

Now, I'm not suggesting that AudienceGames can have as deep of an experience as a Facebook, myspace or whatever's next might deliver, but it'll sure deliver happy, social, engaged people.

So, could this be the start of an entirely new, social media experience? And what else could happen in this social media space that would deliver for the audience? Lastly, how could we connect the location based social media experience with the online social media experience? That's where I'm really excited to play!

So, I'm sending this to my social network and asking for your input. Is this a new form of social media? What else can we bring to the experience? How do we bring the online & offline elements together into a seamless social experience?

Looking forward to your thoughts!