Gamer Marketing - Gags, Gimmics and Branded Credit Cards

[Merusk]

So Marketplace had a story about AmEx planning to partner with League of Legends to produce a branded card.  Your reward points are actually Riot points.  They say they're going after the 18-24 year old market and are giving 1k riot points just for signing-up. Just what kids that young need, more debt!

Still, I find it interesting that gaming (or rather just LoL) is getting to be such a mainstream thing that companies are starting to explore things like this.  Where it used to be "your favorite sports team" it's now expanding to embrace these new past times.

Anyone else see something lately that made you think, "Crap, this really is getting to be a more mainstream hobby."

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/amexs-plan-lure-gamers-partner-league-legends

[Yoru]

I think my last "jesus, this shit's mainstream" shock was when I was sitting on a 6-hour flight from Miami to San Francisco in January. A tired woman and her rambunctious four-year-old daughter sat next to me.

The instant the fasten-seatbelt light darkened, the woman whipped out a tablet and handed it to her kid. The kid booted up Minecraft and spent the next 5 hours punching trees.

[Hutch]

I think my last "jesus, this shit's mainstream" shock was when I was sitting on a 6-hour flight from Miami to San Francisco in January. A tired woman and her rambunctious four-year-old daughter sat next to me.

The instant the fasten-seatbelt light darkened, the woman whipped out a tablet and handed it to her kid. The kid booted up Minecraft and spent the next 5 hours punching trees.

Deja vu (or something): I was in a plane last week, and I saw a little girl playing Minecraft on a tablet. Made me jealous.

[Rasix]

My son's been playing Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds since he was just a year and a half old.  Well, he wasn't very good at Angry Birds at that age, but Fruit Ninja was really easy to grasp.  He's 4 now and really comfortable navigating a PC and tablet.

I think my wtf-technology was seeing an oldish looking mom and her tween daughter both with 3DSs playing together while I was getting my allergy shots.  Then I thought for just a second and realized that's going to be me and my son soon enough (my wife may have something to say about this).  Would have been nice though if her mom had any sense of how annoying they were playing with the sound on in a pretty small room.  Then when they finally decided to use headphones, the daughter was playing some sort of rhythm game using a stylus.  She was tapping hard enough to crack the damn screen.  The annoying sound was better.  I need to remember my headphones when I go there. /GETOFFMYLAWN

[ghost]

I think my last "jesus, this shit's mainstream" shock was when I was sitting on a 6-hour flight from Miami to San Francisco in January. A tired woman and her rambunctious four-year-old daughter sat next to me.

The instant the fasten-seatbelt light darkened, the woman whipped out a tablet and handed it to her kid. The kid booted up Minecraft and spent the next 5 hours punching trees.

Deja vu (or something): I was in a plane last week, and I saw a little girl playing Minecraft on a tablet. Made me jealous.

I'm taking a flight with my four year old this Friday and he's damned sure going to be playing some Plants Vs. Zombies and Minecraft on the planes.

[HaemishM]

My sister-in-law brought her 3 kids down this past month for a week, ages 11, 5 and 3, and my brother-in-law's age 5 son joined us for a few nights as well. I couldn't keep them off my Android tablet playing either Minecraft or Bunny Shooter. The 11-year old would load up a Minecraft world on his Android phone and play with one of the others in the same world on the tablet. It was really weird to me but cool. If they weren't playing Minecraft, they were watching Minecraft videos on Youtube.

[Stormwaltz]

My oldest had memorized the Minecraft wiki before he was six. When I needed to know how to make something, I'd ask him.

These days he's eight and spends a lot of his time with "Super Mario Brothers X," an indie third-party level builder.

[schild]

When I was 10 or 11 I set up a pirated copy of MBBS at home so my friends could play Trade Wars without paying for it and later, Tele-Arena and MajorMUD.

Younger children playing things more complex than PUT THE PLASTIC SQUARE THROUGH THE WOODEN BOX WITH A HOLE isn't exactly a staggering event. Nor is it particularly surprising that this shit has gone mainstream, given where TV has gone (spoiler: further into the toilet). I wanted to watch cartoons a few saturday mornings ago, and couldn't even find any.

[schild]

Also, gamers breed gamers. Soooooooooooo. One day we'll have XxDouchenozzle420xX as POTUS.

[HaemishM]

And he will be an AWP Camping Fag. 

[Merusk]

I wanted to watch cartoons a few saturday mornings ago, and couldn't even find any.

Cartoons are only on the CW affiliates from what I can tell and they're terrible and can be ignored for the most part.  Sonic X, Dragonball z Kai, Rescue Heroes, Yu-Gi-Oh reruns.

Cartoons on Saturday morning TV died in the 90s when Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon began showing cartoons nearly 24/7 and Disney became a free channel.  Networks no longer saw a point in 'wasting' the space.

Though, yeah, gamers breed gamers.  It's still staggering as an old one to see shit as mainstream as it is.  Particularly when there's still a stigma around it among your peer-group that doesn't exist for younger folks.

[Paelos]

Relic raid on Iran at 3AM server!

[Shannow]

Pfffft  chan 220 on comcast. 1 hour block of Avatar (Avatara as my 4 yr old calls it....yes when she looks up from playing Minecraft on the Ipad) and Legend of Korra. Every morning. Satisfies the 37yr old, 12 yr old and 4yr old all in one go.

[Yoru]

One day we'll have XxDouchenozzle420xX as POTUS.

Anyone else suddenly want to Kickstarter a sequel to Idiocracy?

[Draegan]

Schild where the fuck is our F13 BBS so we can set up TA?

[schild]

In 2005 I looked into setting up Tele-Arena and MajorMud, but uhhh:

http://www.majormud.com/pricing.html

I love Tele-Arena, but it's pretty solved. I mean I can draw most of the maps from memory. MajorMud, however, is just bigger and more interesting whatwith PVP and such.

I guess if anyone here has a legal license, I could nab it and poke around but honestly, they shouldn't be charging more than $10 for the whole shebang in 2013.

[schild]

Also, Hex.

[Draegan]

LOL at those prices.

I miss my ... goblin monk? Thing had three attacks or something at level 1.

[luckton]

Also, Hex.

You really should setup the forum bot to auto-respond to every post in which you say this with a gif of Pee Wee's Playhouse freaking out over saying "the secret word".   

[KallDrexx]

Also, Hex.

You really should setup the forum bot to auto-respond to every post in which you say this with a gif of Pee Wee's Playhouse freaking out over saying "the secret word".   

Then in his signature add references to I Am Legend and HellGate: London 

[schild]

I love that people think there's some potential for Hex to be a Hellgate London style failure.

[Rendakor]

I love that people thought there's some potential for Hellgate London to be a Diablo style success.

FIFY.

[UnSub]

Also, gamers breed gamers. Soooooooooooo. One day we'll have XxDouchenozzle420xX as POTUS.

People were a fan of his BOOM HEADSHOT diplomacy style right up to the point they realised he was a dirty team PKer.

[Merusk]

In further pandering news, I got this in my mail today:

https://www.nerdblock.com/

$20 Subscription service that will send you a mystery package each month promising "2.5 pounds of goodies" from 'nerd-centric' pop culture like Star Wars, Cartoon Network, Marvel, DC, Disney.

I'm not sure just how insulted I should be.

[Fabricated]

WoW has had a credit card for 3-4 years now I think. This is going to become more common as F2P games become a large market. It wouldn't surprise me to see say a Perfect World credit card that gives Zen or whatever their dumb currency is as reward points. Same for NCSoft's stuff.

[Paelos]

In further pandering news, I got this in my mail today:

https://www.nerdblock.com/

$20 Subscription service that will send you a mystery package each month promising "2.5 pounds of goodies" from 'nerd-centric' pop culture like Star Wars, Cartoon Network, Marvel, DC, Disney.

I'm not sure just how insulted I should be.

Thats pretty funny. It's like a geek co-op package.