Culmination of a Paper Football Championship

Posted by John Durbin | July 13, 2009

paper football image

Bienvenido “Benny” Torres and Christian Kugel struck their fists to their flat hands in a rock-paper-scissor “coin toss” to see who would get the opportunity to strike first in the inaugural Denuo Paper Football Championship Game. There was tepid anticipation in the air as their various vanquished opponents from the previous three rounds surrounded them to watch. Once players, they were now witnesses to desktop sports history. Only one of them (Albert Kim) had predicted that Torres and Kugel would meet in the finals. At the end of the count of three, Torres threw two fingers into a V shape, proclaiming scissors. The tension in the cold room was only matched by that of Kugel’s fingers. The maintained fist of rock signified the first victory of the day, and Kugel would receive the Torres kickoff to start the game.

Kickoffs are routine in just about every paper football game. But whenever Torres puts the edge of the paper football off his end of the table, preparing to slide the ball across the forboding black desktop, the crowd always sits with bated breath; each of them wondering if lightening would strike a second time.

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Denuo is Full of Prudes & Whores

Posted by Anisha Ahluwalia | July 6, 2009

There’s no denying that Twitter is an iconic poster child of the times. What gives the platform its real significance? Besides the bird, it’s what Twitter enables, how people use it, and how these behaviors evolve.

Inspired partly by this and mostly by the opportunity to shed superficial light on the lovely employees here, I embarked on a rigorous analysis to diagnose the different Denuo personalities, based solely on their Tweets.

Below is a summary of findings. Huge credit goes to Sarah for synthesizing the results into this phenomenally frightening visual representation.

prude whore

NARRATORS provide filtered color commentary. They observe and selectively share worthy nuggets that aren’t corrupted by personal bias and judgment.

CRITICS rant, pick apart, reveal- but only when true inspiration strikes. Their self-musings are discerning, nuanced and often appeal to a more focused and limited group.

POLITICIANS promote, promote, promote. They tirelessly cater to an avid, broad following by frequently spotlighting their wisdom, travels, work and discoveries.

EDITORS curate and distribute content a la news outlets. They find inspiration from their large networks and Tweet/RT the best finds, often multiple times a day.

Read more to see the full details of the study.

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Arcade Titles Need Love Too

Posted by Trey Ho | July 3, 2009

nintendo
The classic Nintendo controller has 4 buttons and a directional pad. Today, there are exactly 12 buttons, a directional pad, and two joysticks on an Xbox 360 controller. However, the days of single-digit button gaming are far from gone and, in my opinion, have not lost any luster. Simplicity, approachability, and raw (uncomplicated) fun are some of the core characteristics you’ll find in two upcoming Xbox Live arcade games that I’m personally looking forward to: ‘Splosion Man by Twisted Pixel and Zombie Apocalypse by Konami.

The thing that’s changed is, for the general population, new arcade titles easily get lost with all of the attention drawn onto today’s mega blockbuster hits.

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DenuoFlash: Matt Story @ IAB Games

Posted by Mary DeBrunner | July 1, 2009

matt story

On June 15th, Denuo Director and gaming guru Matt Story participated in an Electronic Arts workshop at the IAB Markeplace: Games Conference in San Francisco – an event sponsored by the game developer and Microsoft. The workshop, which focused on how brands are brought to life in the gaming space, included Progressive’s Emerging Media Manager Chris Scott and four individuals from the EA gaming studio – Elizabeth Harz, Steve Seabolt, Matt Marsala and Sam Player.

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5 Cannes Conclusions

Posted by Dan Buczaczer | June 30, 2009

cannes

I spent last week in Cannes for my first ever Lions and am still too jet-lagged to type anything too highminded about the festival. But here are 5 conclusions I walked away with:

1. Digital is the core of every Integrated campaign. It’s simply too powerful and offers up too many tools to play an incidental role any more. I’m not saying that most campaigns out there use digital effectively. I’m just saying that those impressive enough to win a top Lion will largely be earning that honor based on a central role for online and/or mobile. Even though the Obama campaign, this year’s Grand Prix Integrated winner, was largely grass-roots focused, it was still MyBarackObama.com as well as strong presences across social media channels that added scale and organization (and brought in the cash).

2. “Interactive is becoming less about the computer”. I’m sure I bastardized the quote but Lars Bastholm, who led this year’s Cyber jury said something similar to that and I could not agree more.The best work in interactive media is becoming less about impressing with fancy technology and more about facilitating things people want or had previously never dreamed of. Campaigns like Best Job in the World and Fiat Eco Drive really illustrated this.

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