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SHANKAR GUPTA

Former MediaPost reporter Shankar Gupta is now Associate Director, Social Marketing, at 360i.

Articles by Shankar All articles by Shankar

  • Little Games, Big Engagement in Gaming Insider on 09/23/2011

    One of the challenges brands often face when they look at getting into gaming is cost and time. Concepting a game people will actually play takes a great deal of time and specialized skills. But sometimes, the simplest games can engage thousands of people if the right circumstances come together.

  • Let's All Go F2P  in Gaming Insider on 08/26/2011

    Free to Play, F2P, Freemium - however you describe it, the business model where consumers get the cow for free, but they need to pay for the milk, the bucket, the stool and the barn, is taking over the Games category of the iTunes app store, as well as the world of online PC gaming.

  • Can Brands And Indie Games Play Nice?  in Gaming Insider on 07/29/2011

    In roughly two days, independent game studio Addo Games will close out a funding drive for their iPad game in development, "Robots Love Ice Cream" -- a game paid for largely by fan donations through Kickstarter.

    Currently, the project is underfunded by about $8,000, but after being featured on sites like Destructoid.com, Wired.com, and others, it seems like it might have an influx of last-minute donations to take its developers over the finish line.

  • 'CivWorld' And Its Less-Than-Auspicious Launch in Gaming Insider on 07/15/2011

    "CivWorld," a social game based on the storied "Civilization" franchise, is not exactly tearing up the charts. According to AppData, two weeks after its launch, "CivWorld" has a little under 300,000 active users -- not a small number of people, but it's just not in the same ballpark as Zynga's titles. Why is that?

  • 'Empires And Allies': A Step Toward Real Social Gaming?  in Gaming Insider on 06/03/2011

    This week, Zynga launched "Empires and Allies," the latest in its line of addictive, microtransaction-based building/strategy games ahead of its rumored upcoming IPO. Despite being the most successful Facebook game developer nearly since its inception a year ago, Zynga has drawn the ire of respected voices in gaming spheres, and "Empires and Allies" appears to be an attempt at addressing some of the criticisms leveled at Zynga, especially the idea that its "social" games aren't really that social at all.

  • Portal 2 ARG Launch Offers Great Marketing Lessons in Gaming Insider on 05/06/2011

    Two weeks ago, Valve Software released -- to critical and popular acclaim -- the highly anticipated sequel to its comedic first-person puzzle game, Portal. The game was originally scheduled to launch on the digital distribution platform, Steam, on Tuesday, April 19, in the early morning. But it ended up being released nine and a half hours earlier as part of a promotional augmented reality game (ARG) designed by Valve and a group of indie game developers.

  • EA Sports Takes Steps To Dominate Social Gaming in Gaming Insider on 04/22/2011

    At the recent MI6 Game Marketing Conference, EA Sports honcho Peter Moore issued a challenge to competitors in the world of social games, including market leader Zynga. EA Sports is planning on dominating Facebook, leveraging its stable of existing properties like Madden Football and FIFA Soccer, two of the dominant sports franchises in the gaming world. "There's a big dog in front of us," he said. "But we aren't far behind, and we're confident that we can catch up. What we can bring to the market in terms of blue-chip IP is phenomenal."

  • Color And The Future Of Mobile-Social Gaming in Gaming Insider on 03/25/2011

    This week, photo-sharing start-up Color made huge news by securing a boatload of venture capital, banking on the idea that people in close proximity to one another will want to share photos. CEO Dan Nguyen said that Color was designed to be used with groups, but its effect is often to connect strangers through their photos on their mobile phones.

  • 'Birds' Flock To Facebook in Gaming Insider on 03/11/2011

    Great news for people who love birds and hate pigs: this week Rovio, developer of some of the top iPhone games, announced that it's bringing its marquee title "Angry Birds" to Facebook, adding in new features to make the game social-network-friendly.

  • Are Social Games Evil?  in Gaming Insider on 02/18/2011

    Not everyone is the biggest fan of Farmville, Frontierville, Cityville and the like -- at the very least, if you don't play them, you've almost certainly hidden them from your newsfeed to avoid the constant requests. But one indie developer, Jonathan Blow, creator of the innovative platform/puzzle game "Braid", takes this idea a little bit further. In an interview with PC Gamer Magazine, the developer described the way social games on Facebook ask you to tap your friend list as an in-game resource as "evil."

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