In its latest collaboration with BuzzFeed, GE’s Wonderground allows users to explore five US cities via virtual tours, offering up bites of interesting trivia along the way. The multi-platform game avaialble via iOS or online makes use of the media site's photo content pages in order to immerse users in an eye-opening look through science, design and industrial technology. 

The game lets users explore New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, in which fun facts like "LAX is the 3rd busiest airport in the United States,” and “the Getty Museum hires goats each spring to eat away at brush around the hills of the building,” which are featured in the L.A. video, voiced by BuzzFeed’s EVP Video, Ze Frank, with the headline, "See what others miss."Continue reading...

“Perrier is the sexiest sparkling water you'll ever taste,” according to the 150-year-old brand, which is trying to woo a younger audience with a sexy and sparkling online gaming experience, Perrier Secret Place. 

“Secret Place is an immersive experience with a surprise at every turn, something that will be highly engaging for our target audience. And at a party that goes on for hours, we like to think of Perrier as the drink that can refresh like no other," according to a press release.

It's being marketed as the most high-profile, crazy party experience ever, dispensing clues through the eyes of 60 different characters along with a sweepstakes to win an invitation to one of five mega-parties taking place at Carnival in Rio, Ibiza in Spain, St. Tropez in France, Art Basel in Miami or New Year’s Eve in Sydney, Australia.Continue reading...

The just released MediaBrix Social and Mobile Gaming report is bullish on the performance of social gaming ad campaigns as mobile gaming video ads deliver an average CTR of 3 percent, 30 times higher than the CTR of standard banner advertising campaigns. 

“The key finding on ad engagement rates is that the average social and mobile gaming engagement rates are around 20 percent, the highest of the reported ad formats,” states the report. “By way of comparison, Facebook brand pages have an average engagement rate of .50 percent and pre-roll ads have engagement rates ranging from .7 percent to 3.64 percent, according to data supplied by eMarketer.” 

“It comes as no surprise that social and mobile gaming advertising sees results 30-100 times better than standard online advertising campaigns,” commented Ari Brandt, CEO and Co-founder of MediaBrix, which is behind Honda's new mobile social campaign for the 2013 Honda Civic. “This is largely due to the fact that people are driven by a deep well of positive emotions—such as joy, excitement and brand affinity—when playing social and mobile games.”Continue reading...

Since the end of January, more than 6.5 million people have watched a video from Sony on YouTube that is mysteriously titled "#PlayStation2013." The number of people astounds, mostly because the 44-second video pretty much says absolutely nothing, except to hint at a pending announcement by including a Twitter hashtag in its title.

Now, Sony is apparently ready to talk. The company has invited 1,200 people to a press announcement Wednesday afternoon and the expectation is that it will be to introduce the PlayStation 4, Forbes reports. 

For the millions who won’t be able to fit into the room, don’t worry. Sony will be live-streaming the event, which is fitting since one of the rumors is that aside from the new PlayStation 4 console, Sony will also announce Wednesday that those who purchase the console will be able to stream all existing PS games, the Wall Street Journal reports. All new games will be stored on optical disks.Continue reading...

The world of the Disney Princess—which faces competition from moms and fairies even as it continues being a cash cow for Disney by captivating many girls until the age of three or so—is aiming a bit older with its "I Am a Princess" manifesto.

The video is the latest in a campaign that debuted in the third quarter of 2012, touting the values that the Disney Princess embodies. (B will this new breed of empowered, self-award Disney Princess grow up to be hipster Disney Princesses?)

Check out Disney's earlier "I Am a Princess" videos below, along with another new campaign: an international push for the upcoming Disney Infinity console, starting with this UK commercial:Continue reading...

UK retailers are not having an easy time of it, as the systematic shuttering of 164 Blockbuster stores is added to the list of foundering UK businesess.

The high-profile failing of music retailer HMV—which operates some 240 stores in Britain, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong—has already shut down all 16 of its Irish posts. The chain's owner, Hilco Consumer Capital, which specializes in buying bankrupt brands and owns Borders and Polaroid, is expected to decide the fate of HMV's other stores sometime this month. HMV's woes came on the heels of the bankruptcy of Jessops, a UK camera retailer, last week.

For Blockbuster, whose U.S. retail arm has been belly-up since 2010, the closure of UK stores comes as no surprise.Continue reading...

Atari once ruled the home video-game console industry. First kids sprinted home after school to play Pong in the mid-’70s and then they threw their books down to grab their joysticks and take all the bricks of Breakout, blow up oncoming Asteroids, or take Activision’s Pitfall Harry through a jungle maze.

These days, of course, digital games are everywhere and Atari has been feeling the financial strain for more than a decade, as hinted on its Facebook page on January 17th (above).

Fast forward to January 21st, when its U.S. division announced it's filing for bankruptcy in order to separate itself from the French-owned Atari S.A. (formerly known as Infogrames), which is deep in debt, and focus on digital and mobile gaming.Continue reading...

Spring training is still more than a month away for Major League Baseball but that doesn’t mean the competition isn’t still going on.

Sure, it’s not a battle for a World Series ring, but it is for something that may be burned into the memories of a whole generation of fans: the cover of Playstation’s MLB13 The Show. And the players don’t have a whole lot of control over who will make it.

Instead, the voting has all been done by fans who have been able to choose who they want on the cover via Facebook and Twitter since Jan. 7. Voting wraps up today.Continue reading...