I’m in 3 leagues this year, which is 1 more than I’m used to.  I’ve found that 2 leagues can sometimes be bullish to manage but I may be totally in over my head with 3 leagues especially with a 22 month old and a new baby being born any second.

I’ve had a hard time this year figuring out which research I’m subscribing to:  last year I subscribed to Rotowire and The Huddle but this year, I’ve only subscribed to Rotowire.  I certainly think there is an opportunity to help people select which research they want to subscribe to as it’s all confusing to me. (que for entrepreneurs)  Back in 2008, I tried to visualize the statistics with a project I called GoalLine.tv but realized quickly that I didn’t have the time (though could easily bring it back with some Mechanical Turks – anyone want to help?)

What’s exciting me about this season is the amount of national TV advertisers that have taken to adding fantasy football into their creative strategy.  Brands are now recognizing that there are millions of fantasy sports fans and that the opportunity to bond with us is a big and often missed opportunity.

Lastly, I still don’t see enough innovation within the fantasy football space.  While there are a few more companies doing casual mini-games this year, I still don’t see the dominant players emerging.   Would love to hear about new companies tackling the space…as this is an area that I’ve been passionate about for some time.

Oh – and make sure you tune into tonight’s Minnesota/New Orleans game… the Dave Matthews Band is performing!

In these tough times, I’m excited about companies who can create new revenue streams or fine tune their existing streams.

In the video game world, game developers and publishers were selling their product on store shelves and their margins were falling fast.  One of the main reasons margins were falling is because game development costs were rising due to the next gen consoles (PS3, XBox 360, Wii).  We created IGA Worldwide to help game developers/publishers recognize new revenue sources (ad dollars).  Other people created virtual goods platforms and in-game messaging systems.  Entrepreneurship at it’s finest.

Like I said earlier, I’m excited about the new potential revenue sources that are/will be created for the digital media world.

And why do retailers love these cards? The economics work in their favor.

Now, there’s an interesting fact about these cards. Retailers love them over any other product they have in their store, because the cards themselves don’t take up any inventory.

They’re not activated until they’re purchased, so they don’t sit on the balance sheet of the retailer. They feel like “free money” to retailers. So it’s a very positive business for retailers to get into, and it really lowers the bar for any retailers who are unsure about it, they don’t need to worry about losing money on it.

The really big untapped market for these digital media companies is gift giving. No matter how much someone loves an online world no one is going to say “hey, merry Christmas. I logged into your account and gave you 25 bucks.” Not to mention the impulse buy.

One thing that we have learned is that people do not have have time to manage identities in multiple virtual worlds at the same time. If you are engaged in Habbo Hotel, then chances are, you don’t have time for Second Life.  If you’re playing World of Warcraft, then you may not have time to utilize IMVU.  Also, many of the previous brands who have released their wares into Second Life have all abandoned them after it being all the hype (front page of NY Times, etc).

I’m curious to see how this plays out.   What are your thoughts?

I spoke solely on in-game advertising at the GDI Institute in 2005 and the crowd really got into it.  Lots of great questions and insights that were shared amongst the few hundred in attendance.  As I noted above, maybe 10% of the presentation this time around talked about in-game advertising but the real time was spent with trends.  In-game advertising is part of a larger trend, which is finding ways to monetize games through the use of everpresent connectivity.  With broadband connectivity being harnessed by consoles, a new ecosystem of monetization opens up (skill based wagering, in-game advertising, virtual goods, subscriptions, RMT, etc).

One of the othe rmain topics I spoke about was about video game culture.  Look at what Guitar Hero and Rockstar are doing for fans.  The Nintendo Wii as well.  Toyota’s commercial utilizing World of Warcraft like content.  Games are finally being socially accepted which is opening up a whole creative market.

We had a fantastic discussion about this last night (as I was trying not to fall asleep due to timezone differences) and really enjoyed meeting a lot of new people.  Had lunch today with a gentleman I met last night and we discussed the presentation further.

For those of you who want to see some pictures of Zurich, I posted some in my Flickr gallery.

This image was pulled from the Flickr gallery of LynetteR. My friend Greg pointed me in her direction when I was reading through my RSS feeds last night.

Their current business model needs to change.  Digital distribution of files (games or movies) are not “if” but “when” and as long as it’s easy for the consumer to download.  GameStop sells video games and peripherals in their retail stores but as games become distributed on the Xbox Live, Sony PS3, and Wii platforms, the need to walk down the street to a retail store will become less and less.

NetFlix is experiencing business model disruption because I can access movies on-demand from my cable carrier and watch whatever I’d like, on demand.  It’s only a matter of time until my cable carrier has enough movie inventory available for me to watch that NetFlix becomes extinct.

In October 2006, GameStop publicly recognized this issue and announced the opening of their digital distribution service.   In January 2007, NetFlix made their respective announcement about digital distribution.

I’d like to see one mega-store that has everything online that can be downloaded.  Why seperate out music from movies and games?  Why not all together?  Is it going to come down to rights?  Will Sony go in one direction and EA go in another?  If so, the market is going to be fragmented and you’ll have bidders trying to “buy” inventory from these respective rights holders.

Also, keep your eye on the ecosystem of digital distribution.   Who provides the infrastructure to enable the distribution of digital downloads to happen?  The storage? Bandwidth?  Payments?  Rights? 

I’m curious to see how it plays out.

This isn’t the first time that we’re seeing a brand using World of Warcraft as inspiration for a commercial. Check out the Coke commercial that appeared in Japan:

The commercials aren’t just viewed on television. According to YouTube, there have been over 1.5M views of these commercials. Totally opt-in. Impressive.

The presentation is geared towards the following:

• If you work at a media co. looking to acquire in this sector
• If you work at an ad agency or brand trying to make sense of the video game space
• If you’re a game publisher and looking to expand your product line and features
• If you’re a game publisher trying to make sense of the macro industry trends
• If you’re an investor, trying to figure out which are of the industry is hot

Please note that I purposely left out IGA Worldwide, a company that I co-founded a few years back. The reason why I left the company out of the presentation is that some readers would think that I made the presentation solely to hype the company. I tried to be as company-agnostic as possible, to give readers a non-biased view on the games industry.

I welcome all commentary and criticism. Please leave a comment on the blog or shoot me an email. I promise to respond to each comment individually.

I think we’re in an extremely exciting time with Halo 3 bringing in $170M on the first day, Areae launching Metaplace, and Habbo & Tencent proving out the virtual goods model. Who said games aren’t fun?

The presentation is below, and hosted on slideshare (if you’d like to view it there):

First off, IGN reviews GameShow here. It’s a free to play, downloadable PC game, that a live moderator asks trivia questions in the form of streaming video, audio, and text. You get points for right/wrong questions and can win prizes and schwag from advertisers/sponsors. Initially, it’s sports themed and may have sports celebrities partaking as moderators, but I do not see why they can’t extend the product line into other areas.

There is a game that we like to play when visiting Peabody’s Bar in Saratoga Springs… NTN Trivia. I’m going to assume it’s similar in the questions area, but different as there is no social networking component to NTN. I’m sure GameShow will take advantage of avatars, social networks, etc.

I’m predicting that this title will do fairly well. Not sure how EA is going to provide a live moderator 24/7, but I’m sure they’ll figure something out.