Gaming

Team PSFK are pleased to announce our second book! At this time of year we’re supposed to produce a trends report for 2009. When we all sat down and chatted about it, we thought such a report would be so gloomy and rather depressing. We didn’t want to write about things like ‘trading down’ or ‘discreet consumption’! We wanted to talk about all the inspirational ideas we read and write about every day, we wanted to spread the positivity, we wanted to encourage you to re-ignite the world. Honestly.

So we created Good Ideas In 2009. The 80 page click-to-print book features nine Good Ideas and manifestations of them. We write about design, mobile, collaboration, digital, social media, the long term and much more. Click through to the Blurb site and you can get a sneak peek.

The books are $50 for the softback and $60 for the beautiful hardback. If you’re considering buying reports for your company or just books for your coffee table, we ask you to consider Good Ideas In 2009. We’re rather proud of it. We hope it inspires you yo make things better.

Good Ideas In 2009

Allstate insurance is testing out a new program, called InSight, that uses online video game tests to identify safe older drivers. Using simple games that measure brain fitness, the company is hoping that gaming proficiency will indicate aptitude with the same skills in real life. One of the games, Jewel Diver: Divided Attention tests subjects ability to track multiple objects at a time. The InSight program plans to offer insurance discounts to drivers over 50 who successfully pass the online tests.

Ars Technica reports:

Allstate is currently piloting a new program which seeks to find out if playing driving video games could make better drivers out of those over 50. If the study shows that it can, the insurance company plans to offer discounts to mature drivers who pass the online tests and the current, single-state pilot would be spread across other states next year. The initial run at the program is taking place in Pennsylvania. Select customers in the state aged 50 to 75 will be brought in to test out the special games as part of a free option in the customers’ current insurance plan. The total number of hours played by this experimental group will be tracked and then accident rates will be compared to a control group that had no contact with the games.

“As Allstate seeks ways to reinvent protection for the consumer, we are taking intelligent risks that are focused on finding new ways to bring value to our customers,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “This innovative approach to improving driver awareness and reaction time has the potential to significantly reduce accidents. That would make the roads safer—and potentially save lives.”

Ars Technica: “Allstate testing video games to identify safe, older drivers”

Set for release on September 16 is LucasArts’ latest Star Wars offshoot: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, a videogame that takes players through the period between the two trilogies of the movie series, episodes III and IV. The game features fantastical detail that won’t disappoint serious gamers, and Star Wars fans will enjoy determining their own - and the Empire’s… and even the Galaxy’s - destiny.

[via Wired]

In case you weren’t getting enough pressure about looking better, now Nintendo has made a lovable piece of software to give you pointers on improving your face. In a partnership with Shiseido, a massive Japanese cosmetics company, Nintendo hopes this little DS title will give people an incentive to become uniformly attractive. The full title of this portable “game” is Shiseido Beauty Solution Supervised Exploration Center Project Beauty and will likely stay within the insular Japanese market.

[via DVICE]

We haven’t seen a lot from Second Life lovers recently. Imagine our surprise then, when we found that Google has actually jumped on the bandwagon at this late date, and launched Google Lively, a ‘virtual space where you can chat and interact with your friends in rooms you design’.

Ad Age has an interesting piece on Nolan Bushnell and his views on how gaming and advertising can work together. Bushnell founded Atari and now thinks there’s an opportunity for advertisers to work with casual-game makers.

“We know no one is TiVoing through our ads, and we know they’re not taking bathroom breaks because there’s not enough time,” Mr. Bushnell said. “When you’re looking down the barrel of six ads on TV, there’s a lot of stuff you can do in that amount of time.”

Mr. Bushnell serves as the chairman of the board for NeoEdge, which created the NeoArm ad-enabling technology and the NeoAds advertising network. The company just signed a deal with Yahoo Games to support its casual-game offerings to sell and integrate pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll video ads into Yahoo’s casual-games catalog beginning this summer.

By the end of the year, NeoEdge, which is working in tandem with in-game advertising firm Double Fusion, will have more than 400 free downloadable ad-supported games from over 30 publishers on the Yahoo Games site. There are currently more than 18 million casual gamers on Yahoo, which has been the No. 1 destination for casual games for 50 straight weeks.

NeoEdge allows any game to become ad-enabled without touching the core source code, which opens up any gaming experience to advertisers interested in Yahoo’s “mass-casual gaming demographic,” which Kyle Laughlin, head of Yahoo Games, said is 60% female with an age range of 25 to 54. These consumers spend about 160 minutes a month playing casual games. In addition, these casual gamers are accountable for 86% of all household purchases.

Atari Creator Says Games Fertile Ground for Marketers - Advertising Age - Madison+Vine: News

OK. The conference in San Francisco is now a week away and we’re rather excited. We’ve got an amazing bunch of speakers talking about an amazing bunch of ideas and trends. And there’s a free party for anyone who can or can’t make it - co-hosted by Behance with drinks provided by Gawker Media.

Here is the latest agenda. If you’re in the area - come buy a ticket. If you’re not. Send this to a friend!

For Tickets: http://www.psfk.com/psfk-conference-san-francisco
AGENDA

8.00 Registration

8.30 Opening Remarks
PSFK founder Piers Fawkes welcomes the audience and introduces the agenda.

8.45 Trends-Should you care?
Ed Cotton (BSSP) explains why trends and inspiration matter - and how you can judge and use them.

9.15 San Francisco Snapshot
What makes the Bay Area tick? Colin Nagy (Attention) leads a discussion with passionate locals discuss what aspects of local culture inspire them the most. Panel includes Amit Gupta (Photojojo), Jeremy Townsend (Ghetto Gourmet), Kevin Allison (Financial Times) and Liz Dunn (funnyordie.com)

10.00 Shape The World
Chris Riley (Apple) explains how three Bay Area residents have shaped his world.

10.30 Coffee

10.50 New Art
Since opening her online and offline art galleries, Jen Bekman (20×200) has witnessed (and encouraged) and new movement of artists, themes and styles. Bekman talks about the trends she sees in art and artists’ use of technology to connect with art-lovers and buyers.

11.20 Make It With Us
Ezra Cooperstein (Current TV) and Andrew Hoppin (NASA) describe how to shake up large bureaucratic industries (e.g.: aerospace and broadcast media) by turning customers into creators and collaborators

12.00 Making Inspiration Matter
Gathering trends and ideas may be important but how do you take inspiration and create change? Gareth Kay (Modernista) leads a discussion with Eric Corey Freed (Organic Architect), Frank Striefler (Media Arts Lab) and Josh Morenstein (fuseprojects).

12.30 Lunch

1.40 Thoughtful Change
Jean-Marie Shields (Starbucks) explains that the future will embrace brands that connect with consumers by converting ideas into Thoughtful Change.

2.10 Aligning Interests
When cynical people admit they’re idealistic you might be on to something; Publisher and Founding Editor Max Schorr shares his inspirations and learnings from the beginning of GOOD Magazine.

2.40 Look & Feel
Creative designer and inventor of Red, the award winning In Flight Entertainment system for Virgin America, speaks about innovation in the cabin worldwide.

3.20 Coffee

3.40 Using It
How can companies and organizations leverage social media to enhance consumer dialog, evolve product offering and improve sales. Bootstrapping expert George Parker will lead a discussion with leading marketing innovators Adrian Ho (Zeus Jones), Mark Lewis (DDB), Lynn Casey (Team Noesis) and Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence).

4.20 When Words Are Not Enough
Using experience design to enhance communications: George Murphy (Modo-Group) and John Pollard (Microsoft) describe how environments and technology helped consumers connect with the brand.

4.50 Behave
Josh Handy & Nate Pence talk about how they design the method way, and how design and creative both mirror and shape the organization.

5.20 Closing Remarks

7.00 We Like You Party With PSFK & Behance
Open to all at the Otis bar. Conference attendees will be automatically on the guest-list. Friends of Behance and PSFK can RSVP here.

Mixing elements of graffiti tagging and a Google Maps mashup, Urban Takeover is a mixed reality game that takes place both online and in the “real” world. The goal of the game is to put special stickers with your name/tag on buildings, or any other stationary object and claim it as your own. You then text the Urbantakeover website to get listed on their map of owned locations. It’s a worldwide competition to get the most territories, and you can play in teams or by yourself. Others can try to take over your spots, and you’re alerted via text if a counter attack is desired. The game originated in Vienna, and takeovers are now being sighted on the Golden Gate Bridge and Google HQ.

[via Laughing Squid]

Virgin America’s designer Jesse McMillin has collaborated with Sir Richard Branson himself to create a custom character for the new EA videogame Spore. They developed a “carbon-offsetting” creature developed for the game as part of a competition where $15,000 will get donated to the charity of the winners choice. Branson selected “Project Clean Water” a Virgin Unite project that will also be featured on Virgin America’s in-flight entertainment system later this summer.

Spore Contest