Archive
New York Times Features Self Magazine and Live Gamer
We would like to take a moment to congratulate Self Magazine and Conde Nast for launching their first ever social game, “Workout in the Park”. The game was recently featured in the New York Times.
Live Gamer worked closely with Self as a strategic partner and is currently powering the game’s ecommerce and advertising. “Workout in the Park” will focus on the female demographic and feature game play in areasof fitness, health and wellness, beauty and fashion. Users will be able to interact with game elements like avatars, virtual goods and puzzles.
Click here to read the full NYT article
Live Gamer Powering Rise of Immortals™ Virtual Economy
New York, August 30, 2011 - Live Gamer (www.livegamer.com), the world’s first combined digital commerce and advertising platform for the interactive entertainment industry, announced today that it will power the virtual economy in Rise of Immortals™, the new Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game from Petroglyph®.
Petroglyph has broken new ground in the MOBA genre with free-to-play Rise of Immortals, and has introduced unique socialization features like a social hub where players can show off their enhanced Immortals, a chat system, leader boards, and friend lists, an innovative character progression system, persistent level progression and skill trees, as well as cooperative Player versus Environment (PvE) mode – without the upfront cost of a typical MOBA game. Virtual goods and microtransactions let players engage and advance within Rise of Immortals at their own price point and pace, offering an experience that truly stands apart from existing MOBA titles in the market.
Petroglyph has integrated the Live Gamer Elements platform into Rise of Immortals to drive the game’s virtual economy. As a complete monetization engine, Live Gamer Elements includes virtual and digital goods catalog management, earned and bought currency support, item storefronts and merchandising, as well as deep analytics and international payment gateways.
“Petroglyph has built quite a bit of innovation into Rise of Immortals, bringing players features and game play that are new to the MOBA genre,” said Andrew Schneider, President and Co-Founder, Live Gamer. “We’re excited to be working with them to power some of these new features, and wish them the best of luck with the release.”
“Live Gamer’s Elements technology allowed us to quickly develop micro-transaction inventory, catalog and price management systems for Rise of Immortals,” said Steve Wetherill, Producer at Petroglyph Games. “Elements proved to be a great match for our requirements, enabling us to focus our development efforts on our game and at the same time shortening our time to market.”
Live Gamer Acquires GamerDNA and Brandport
Live Gamer (www.livegamer.com), the trusted total revenue solution for the interactive entertainment industry, today announced that it has acquired two companies, GamerDNA and Brandport, to form the world’s first combined e-commerce and advertising platform. GamerDNA is one of the largest video game ad networks in the United States and Europe, reaching close to 48 million unique viewers per month. Brandport, which has been rebranded to Live Gamer Ad Elements, offers a video ad platform is used to increase monetization of free-to-play games by targeting all different types of gamers.
Check out coverage of the acquisitions on TechCrunch, Adweek, and All Things Digital!
Live Gamer Powers 2K’s First Social Games Endeavor
LIVE GAMER TO POWER MONETIZATION FOR 2K’S SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION® WORLD FOR FACEBOOK
E-Commerce Platform Leader Powers 2K’s First Social Games Endeavor
NEW YORK, June 30, 2011 – Live Gamer (www.livegamer.com), the trusted total revenue solution for the interactive entertainment industry, today announced that it has been selected by 2K to power its first foray into Facebook social games with its highly anticipated title Sid Meier’s Civilization® World. Sid Meier’s Civilization is recognized as one of the greatest strategy franchises of all-time, with more than 10 million units sold worldwide and unprecedented critical acclaim from fans and the media alike.
2K has integrated the Live Gamer Elements platform, for access to the only end-to-end virtual goods and economy management service available. This complete monetization engine includes earned and bought currency e-wallet, virtual goods catalog management and merchandising, item storefronts, deep analytics, integration with Facebook Credits for payments and much more.
“Civilization is one of the most successful and beloved game franchises in history, made by one of the most acclaimed game designers ever,” said Andrew Schneider, President and Co-Founder, Live Gamer. “It’s an honor to be a part of 2K’s first endeavor into the social games world with their debut Facebook application, Civilization World.”
To learn more about Live Gamer’s total monetization solutions, visit http://livegamer.com/products/.
2K is a wholly owned publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).
All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.
Live Gamer’s CEO, Mitch Davis To Speak At Business Insider’s Ignition Event
Join Live Gamer’s Co-founder and CEO, Mitch Davis at the Business Insider’s IGNITION Event as he discusses the impact of Farmville and other casual games on housewives.
3:35pm – December 2, 2010
Time Warner Center, NYC
Nima Pourshasb To Speak At Social Gaming Summit East
Join Live Gamer’s Vice President, Corporate Development, Nima Pourshasb at Social Gaming Summit East. He will address current trends and hot topics for monetizing user fan bases of interactive and digital entertainment.
Speaker: Nima Pourshasb
Monetizing Interactive and Digital Entertainment
12/1/2010 – 9:40am
Live Gamer Featured In CNN’s Fortune Magazine: How Mafia Wars Can Fix The Media
The online gaming industry sells $2 billion a year in virtual goods through micro-transactions. What if they sold newspapers?
Today, CNN’s Fortune Magazine published an article titled, How Mafia Wars Will Fix Media By John Patrick Pullen which focused on the booming business of the free-2-play and micro-transaction based business model and how that model could be applied to traditional media like the New York Times.
Live Gamer provides the leading enterprise-grade monetization platform for games, social networks, toys, and digital entertainment properties. Although this type of model has yet to be applied to the publishing industry – it is in fact a viable model that could revolutionize the way traditional newspapers and magazines do business if they offer exclusive content that is compelling to their viewer base.
Live Gamer sees average revenue per paying user across all its titles is $28 per month across 85+ million users worldwide. Comparatively speaking an average of 15.7 million users per month visit the New York Times‘, where they have free access to content. Only fewer than 1 million readers choose to subscribe at $20 a month. Pullen suggests (and we couldn’t agree more) that publishers need to tap into this competitive nature and other game-like experiences that are driving the gaming industry today in order to encourage free-model readers to pay for content they find vital.
Read the entire article here
Contact us to learn how you can apply micro-transactions and the free-to-play business model to your IP
First, Give Away the Game – Live Gamer featured in WSJ
Sony, Warner Bros. Drop Subscription Fees and Move into Selling Virtual Goods
Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, First, Give Away the Game which focused on the growing adoption of the free-to-play business model in the Western market with major companies like Sony and Warner Bros. The model not only removes barriers to entry for gamers, but also provides them with the ability to self-select into an optimal price point resulting in a compelling high-margin business for game publishers and developers.
Sony plans to release a F2P version of “Everquest II” and Warner plans to release “Lord of the Rings Online” by the fall abandoning a $15 dollar a month subscription fee. Players will now buy virtual goods and items upgrades incrementally through micro-transactions.
Although the price point on many virtual items often seem small—$1 or $2 for many items— publishers are discovering they can really add up. Across the 145+ titles we power e-commerce for we see an average of 10% of players purchasing virtual goods spending at an average of $28 a month. “There’s no cap on what the user will spend on micro-transactions, unlike a traditional subscription model,” says Andrew Schneider, Live Gamer’s president and co-founder.
This published story follows last week announcements of new partnerships with EA, THQ, and Real Networks’ Gamehouse only solidifying that major Western publishers and IP holders are rapidly adopting this model. Total virtual goods sales this year are expected to reach $1.7 billion in the U.S., up from $278 million in 2008, according to ThinkEquity LLC.
Contact us to learn how Live Gamer can help accelerate your micro-transaction strategy.
To read the Wall Street Journal article in full click here
EA Selects Live Gamer to Drive its Global Micro-transactions
Electronic Arts, Inc. has selected Live Gamer to drive its global micro-transactions-based projects and accelerate the company’s online gaming strategy. EA will integrate our enterprise grade Element’s platform to its global IT systems to augment existing ecommerce capabilities for EA studios worldwide.
Live Gamer Elements offers EA a breadth of new payment gateways, advanced virtual goods merchandising functionality, deep analytics capabilities, virtual item gifting, support for fictional (earned in-game) currencies, item storefronts, robust catalog management, cash-in flows and much more.
This exciting announcement follows last week’s news of partnerships with THQ and Real Networks’ GameHouse. Please read our latest press announcement or contact us to learn how to monetize your business through virtual goods and micro-transactions.
Read Forbes Coverage
Real Networks Selects Live Gamer to Power GameHouse Fusion Virtual Economy
Live Gamer’s Advanced Commerce Solution Offers Scalable, Cross-Platform Monetization Across the GameHouse Social Gaming Platform
At Casual Connect in Seattle we announced that Real Networks selected Live Gamer to power Gamehouse Fusion virtual economy. The announcement followed a few days after news of our THQ partnership.
Gamehouse Fusion is a social gaming platform with thousands of socially connected games across mobile, social networks, and scales hundreds of millions of players. With the new agreement Live Gamer’s enterprise-grade platform, Elements will power virtual currency systems, manages complex virtual item catalogs and storefronts, user policy configurations and advanced merchandising on a secure and scalable platform.
“The free-to-play, virtual goods-based business model has proven to significantly increase revenue in social games, but due to GameHouse Fusion’s scope and complexity, it was critical that we integrate a trusted platform that could scale and meet all of our needs,” said Matt Hulett, chief revenue officer of GameHouse. “We chose the Live Gamer platform because of its advanced toolset and track record in the industry.”
“GameHouse has raised the bar for social gaming online and on mobile,” said Andrew Schneider, president and co-founder for Live Gamer. “We look forward to helping optimize GameHouse’s revenue, increase ARPU, and offer its users the best possible microtransaction experience.”
GameHouse Fusion launched in May with support from large media and technology companies, and simultaneously unveiled GameHouse on Facebook, the first application to be built on the Fusion platform.
