BattleForge, a real-time strategy game from Electronic Arts, had its own life-or-death struggle this year.

Under EA's financial restructuring, Phenomic, the studio that developed BattleForge, went under a microscope. Acquired in 2006, the German studio had been hard at work for three years on the title. Instead of kicking the game to the curb, as it did with a number of other titles including Tiberium, EA decided to launch the computer game in March in retail stores for 50 euros in Europe and $49.95 in the U.S. It bombed.

“We were very disappointed with the sales,” said Frank Gibeau, president of the Redwood City, Calif.-based company's EA Games label. Gibeau said the title sold fewer than 100,000 copies. “We had great respect for the developers, but we had to decide whether we needed to shut down the studio.”

The company met with Phenomic in April to break the bad news.

Soon thereafter, other developers at EA noticed that the few people who bought the title were spending a large amount of money online buying virtual cards that EA sold in the game. These Pokemon-like cards conferred game characters with special skills that can be used to play the game.

“The average spending per user was off the charts,” Gibeau said. “If you got someone to play the game, they became passionate about it.”

Gibeau made a radical call — he decided to give away BattleForge, or at least a big chunk of it, and reserved some levels and features to sell to players.

What happened next surprised EA. Players of the free game ended up spending “north of 50 euros” for additional content. Some hit as much as 75 euros, Gibeau said, 50% more than what the game was selling for at retail. He declined to reveal how many copies have been downloaded since EA released BattleForge as a free title, but said that sales of virtual cards hit a record for the game last week.

As a result, Phenomic pulled back from the precipice of extinction to become a role model for future game development at EA.

“We have four or five projects underway now” that follow the free-to-play model that BattleForge trail-blazed, Gibeau said. “You'll see more of this throughout EA.”

– Alex Pham

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E3: BattleForge bombed at retail, but booms as online game

Celebrities listed on iGoogle Showcase.

Google seems to have a case of celebrity envy.

SanDisk has now made their latest SSDs available for purchase. They’re called the pSSD P2 and S2 and they both use nCache technology, which is said to boost random write speeds up to five times over standard hard drives

This is really great news for netbooks that use complete a OS like Ubuntu, over the pared down versions. This new tech is non-volatile and is supposed to reduce the times the SSD stalls out or glitches.

With speeds that are the equivalent of a 9,000 RPM HDD, this drive is built to perform and it’s small, too, making it perfect for netbooks. It’s also able to withstand extreme temperatures and is shockproof. You can get the pSSD P2 and S2 in several models including 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions.

• SanDisk pSSD P2 and S2 series: solid-state memory for netbooks
• SanDisk announces 32GB SSD
• The floral SanDisk Cruzer Patter USB Drive
• SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition lives up to its name
• SanDisk announces 64GB SSD drives

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SanDisk pSSD P2 and S2 netbook drives now shipping

LAT’s Dan Neil, a gaming newbie, gets lost — and found — at E3. Check out the video of his journey.

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E3: Gaming newbie Dan Neil tours the video game expo

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes on the CrunchPad since our last update in April, and have just about nailed down the final design for the device. We’re showing the conceptual drawings here today. In another few weeks we’ll have the first working prototypes in our office. This launch prototype is another significant step forward from the last prototype. The screen is now flush with the case and we’ve decreased the overall thickness to about 18 mm. The case will be aluminum, which is more expensive than plastic but is sturdier and lets us shave a little more off the overall thickness of the device. I believe the device now actually looks better than the original concept design we published last summer. Compare this to the first prototype and you can see how far we’ve come. If you’re interested, here’s Prototype B. Pictures of Prototype C, which is the device we’re actually demo’ing to people now, are here. A lot has happened behind the scenes, too. Our partner Fusion Garage continues to drive the software forward, and we are in deep discussions with key partners to bring the device to market. If you’d like to see the previous CrunchPad in action, we have a previously-private video available on YouTube that shows our vision for the user interface and the last version of the software stack. This is a Linux based operating system and a Webkit based browser. The device boots directly into the browser. The next time we talk about the CrunchPad publicly will be at a special press and user event in July in Silicon Valley. If you’d like to be emailed when new news comes out, send an email to crunchpad@techcrunch.com and we’ll put you on the list. More images of the CrunchPad below:

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. View original post here: CrunchPad: The Launch Prototype

At last week’s hush, hush meeting of newspaper execs on how to monetize content and save a dying industry, the American Press Institute presented a white paper that offers a step by step plan of how newspapers should move forward with paid content. Nieman Journalism Lab posted a downloadable copy of the report, which has some interesting recommendations. Poynter also provided a comprehensive review of the report. We’ve embedded the document below.

The report suggests several models to implement paid content, including micropayments, subscriptions and hybrid models. Google is compared to an atom bomb that “blew up the content business into millions of atomized pieces,” leaving news organizations with the mess of putting things back together. Comparing newspapers to “Humpty Dumpty”, the paper paints a “poor-me” tale of how news orgs are scrambling to put all the pieces back together to “restore their integrity.” And of course, news enterprises are also forced to suffer a second related atom bomb: hyper-linking. The report says: “The culture of hyper-linking and hyper-syndication that fuels the interactive Web has become an atom bomb for the old news business model.” So the remedy for putting the pieces back together according to the API: charge for content, stick it to Google, and renegotiate subscription models with Amazon for the Kindle (which it implies is unfairly making more money from content than newspapers). Apparently, nobody at the API has actually read Humpty Dumpty, otherwise they would know that you can never put the pieces back together again.

The API recommends a five pronged business plan, divided by “doctrines,” to charge users for content:

1. True Value Doctrine: Newspapers should create value by beginning to charge for it.
2. Fair Value Doctrine: In order to maintain the value of content, newspapers should aggressively enforce copyrights and right to profit from published content.
3. Fair Share Doctrine: News orgs should start to negotiate with the technology industry for higher prices for content that is aggregated, redistributed, broken up, and linked to.
4. Digital Deliverance Doctrine: Newspapers should invest in technology and digital platforms that could “provide content-based e-commerce, data sharing and other revenue-generating solutions” at “premium prices.”
5. Consumer Centric Doctrine: Newspaper need to refocus their content from advertisers to readers/consumers.

The section of the paper that addresses Google is part sad, part funny and part delusional. Google, the “atom bomb,” is also a “frenemy” to newspapers, citing Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, and VP of products and user experience, Marissa Mayer, as the top frenemies at Google. The paper concedes that Google provides 25 to 35 percent of the traffic to news web sites but says that Google is taking a disproportionate share of profits from content creators. Reading between the lines, the paper suggests that Google’s profits are being stolen from newspaper’s profits. In order to seek compensation from Google, the API suggests that news organizations should put legal, political, business and technological pressure on Google, and other “powerful players” in the digital space including MSFT, Yahoo, AOL, and Facebook.

That’s right.  Part of the plan is for newspapers, which are technologically challenged, to put “technological pressure” on the technology giants.  That plan is even less likely to succeed than the Humpty Dumpty one.

It’s understandable that newspaper organizations are trying to figure out the best way to move forward in the industry, and I think that this report does outline their options for monetization (if that is the remedy) fairly well. Although, many don’t necessarily agree with this. But the passive aggressive finger pointing at Amazon, Google and others seems to be a bit off. As author Michael Connelly wisely says in an interview, “Google doesn’t kill newspapers. People kill newspapers.”

apireportmay09 –

(Photo credit: Flickr/Atarkus)

(Photo credit: Flickr/Pink Rocker)

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The API’s Plan To Save Newspapers: Let’s Put Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again

E3 model representing EverQuest 2 game character Fiorina Vie at Sony’s booth. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

In Japan, they’re called “event companions.” In the U.S. at auto shows, they’re known as “product specialists.” At E3 this week, game companies are calling them “models.”

Most people, however, refer to them by a less genteel term — booth babes. They have been a staple of the video game industry’s biggest convention for years, drawing crowds of men who jockey to get their pictures taken alongside the barely dressed women.

In 2006, the Entertainment Software Assn., which puts on E3, banned models from wearing “bathing suit bottoms” and striking “sexually provocative” poses.

This year, the models are back at E3, alongside the lavish booths and jumbo screens.

Not everyone is rejoicing. Some executives believe the models propagate the notion that video games are the domain of adolescent males at a time when the industry is working hard to expand its reach to women, kids and older players.

“This type of marketing is infantile,” said Sean Spector, co-founder of GameFly, a game rental service based in Los Angeles. “Our audience is much smarter than we give them credit for.”

The ESA’s president, Michael Gallagher, said companies exhibiting at E3 can use models “within the bounds of taste.” He defended their presence, saying they “project high energy and vitality.”

It’s worked.The clusters of men gathered around booth models on the show floor this year rival those going to see the games they are supposed to promote.

– Alex Pham

Tell us what you think.

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E3: Booth models, pro or con?

Today at the Startup 2009 conference in New York City, Business Insider’s Henry Blodget interviewed Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes on stage. Hughes recently moved to the city and has been going around to various colleges on the east coast talking to students who have good ideas, but don’t necessarily know how to start companies, as he put it. On the topics of Facebook, the Obama campaign (he was a major player in the online side of it) and even Twitter, he had some interesting things to say.

On Facebook, Blodget of course had to bring up the allegations that the idea was stolen when Hughes was still in college with co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. “Not true,” says Hughes. While both Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard to move west to focus on Facebook full-time, Hughes stayed in school. But it’s a decision that Hughes admits he kind of regrets. He wishes that he could have been working on it full-time from the beginning.

The back story has been told many times before, but from Hughes perspective, Facebook was started as a way for friends to share what they thought was cool on the web in a trusted environment. And to get updates on what other people were doing. It’s hard to know if that’s a bit of revisionist history (at least the way he’s phrasing it), as those two things happen to be exactly what Facebook is so focused on right now. Sharing things from around the web is finally starting to come into focus with Facebook Connect taking off. And getting updates on what others are up to is the major part of the redesigned homepage which, yes, looks a lot like Twitter — that other service dedicated to status updates.

Speaking of Twitter, during the Q&A portion, someone asked for Hughes’ thoughts on the service. Hughes had apparently only just started using it when he was being interviewed for his Fast Company cover story a couple months ago, and the magazine noted that he had done so, “albeit reluctantly.” But now, Hughes seems quite sold on the service. “I think Twitter is great,” he said before going on about how he doesn’t believe that there can only be one service that everyone uses to share things — something which I absolutely agree with. Instead, he sees Twitter as just one of many new ways to communicate on the web, and believes there will be room for “dozens of applications like this.”

Blodget then got Hughes to talk a bit about his experience with the Obama campaign. Hughes broke it down into simple terms, noting that all the campaign really did was use existing technology to make campaigns more efficient. The key parts of that were ways to help the campaign raise money easier, and also to connect with voters to form an emotional relationship.

He talked about how right after one of former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speeches in which she belittled what the Obama campaign was doing with its online efforts, the entire team got fired up and starting sending out a mass of emails to supporters. Hughes and the team realized that Palin was an extremely divisive person, and used people’s dislike of her as a way to raise money instantly online. Obviously, it worked to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars.

Blodget wondered if that type of campaign victory was a one-time thing, asking if the Republicans had found their “Chris Hughes.” Hughes wasn’t sure if they had, but guessed that in the next round of major elections, the Republicans will probably have a similar game plan. “We weren’t doing brilliant new things,” Hughes said continuing on that they just knew what would work online.

The talk then turned back to Facebook, where Blodget wondered if Hughes felt the company was doing the right things in order to become a profitable company. Not surprisingly, Hughes is very optimistic about Facebook’s business potential, noting that the company is just in the process of trying a bunch of interesting ideas and seeing what works. He reiterated Zuckerberg’s claims that by the end of the year, Facebook plans to be cash-flow positive.

One audience member asked why Facebook wasn’t doing the type of big advertising site branding that its rival MySpace was doing. “There’s a reason we don’t do that. Ads shouldn’t be in people’s way,” Hughes noted before saying that the best type of advertising is non-intrusive and interesting. Clearly, he doesn’t think too highly of MySpace’s Fanta ads.

Hughes is positive that bigger and better online advertising possibilities will exist over the course of the next few years. And he obviously thinks Facebook will be able to take advantage of that in a very meaningful way, given that it has over 200 million users — and is still growing at a nice rate.

Hughes became an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at General Catalyst Partners back in March.

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Chris Hughes Likes Twitter, Hates MySpace Ads And Wishes He Would Have Dropped Out Of School

Way in the back of the Los Angeles Convention Center’s South Hall, past the huge exhibits by EA, Microsoft, Disney and Ubisoft, sits the Indiecade. It is here that hopeful game developers, many from schools like the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive Media program or the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, bring their projects and calling cards for all (preferably prospective buyers or employers) to see.  But more on that in a later post … for now, we Pluff.

Diana Hughes, an MFA graduate of USC’s aforementioned program, handed me a furry business card.  A furry card! That was almost enough to blow me away, but then there’s this ball of fur with eyes and a mouth sitting on a table in front of a TV screen.

“What do you do with that?”

“You pet it.”

Should’ve known it would be that obvious, but Hughes’ Pluff — a thesis project -- was a bit more interactive than your normal stuffed animal.  She’ll explain the details:

And yes, you don’t get a grade for your master’s thesis!  Lesson learned: Amid the huge displays and flashing lights and gamers hopped up on Gamer Grub and 5-Hour Energy drink samples, there are some smaller gems on the E3 floor.

We do want to see what scary things they’ve done with this title though!

-- Jevon Phillips

Photo: The eerie poster of a frozen little girl on a swing illustrates how haunting Konami’s Silent Hill: Shattered Memories game could be. Credit: Jevon Phillips

More E3 photos

[via LATimes.com]

BenQ revealed a new super-portable, super-light netbook called the JoyBook Lite U121 Eco today. This tiny PC measures in at just 11.6-inches and weighs only 2.9-pounds. However, don’t let its light frame fool you.

This netbook has a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor, a three-cell battery and a six-cell battery option that’s capable of up to eight hours of life. The display has a 1,366 x 768 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Also included are several hard drive options that include 160GB, 250GB, 320GB and 500GB models. You can have a solid-state drive as well in either 8GB, 16GB or 32GB sizes. You can choose between Linux Lite or Windows XP Home Edition for your operating system and there’s up 2GB of RAM. Other features include an HDMI output, Bluetooth 2.1, HSUPA mobile broadband, Wi-Fi, two 2W speakers, VoIP and a 1.3-megapixel webcam. The JoyBook Lite U121 Eco netbook will be available in China, Taiwan and Malaysia in June in white and blue color options. Pricing is not yet known.

• BenQ Joybook Lite U101 netbook to join overcrowded market
• BenQ Joybook Lite U101 netbook launches in Taiwan
• BenQ Joybook Lite U101 netbook has true 16:9 widescreen, HSUPA
• BenQ Joybook Q41 is a SideShow freak
• BenQ drops Joybook R43 notebook

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BenQ JoyBook Lite U121 Eco announced