Video games

Domino’s Pizza, Fiat, and Levi’s – what do they all have in common? On the surface, very little. But a New York-based business has named the companies among the top 100 brands with “social currency.”

Vivaldi Partners, a group of three companies that includes a strategic consulting firm and an “organizational change” company, rates social currency on six attributes: affiliation, identity, information, conversation, utility, and advocacy. The firm reviewed and analyzed campaigns coming from across Europe, the Americas, and Asia over the past three years.

To sum it up, Vivaldi says: “Social currency is achieved when consumers: share a video, an image, a blog post, a tweet, or a thought about a brand.”

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Just when you thought all the PR gaffes that could be made in 2011 had been made, we have one more example to prove you wrong.

Ocean Marketing has, according to gaming site Kotaku, been pretty much destroyed by a customer service incident that never should have happened ever on modern-day planet Earth.

You can read the entire email chain on the website Penny Arcade, but in short, a customer contacted Paul Christoforo, the president of Ocean Marketing, which was representing a company that makes a video game controller accessory. The customer, Dave, asked some pretty simple questions about when he would receive the item he purchased and somehow this escalated into a back-and-forth with Christoforo calling him names, name-dropping, and just plain-old being a jerk.

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Good news for the video-game industry: On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law that banned the sale of violent games to minors, and punished those who sold them with $1,000 fines. California is the seventh state to try – and the seventh state to fail – restricting the sales of violent video games. Now, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, video game companies are essentially shielded from government efforts to regulate violent content.

In the final decision of its 2010-11 term, the court equated violent games with “protected books, plays, and movies” and stated that “video games qualify for First Amendment protection.”

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The Sims Social, a new online game, is coming to Facebook.

Research over the past three months conducted by Women at NBCU’s Brand Power Index found that more women than men have at least one gaming app on their smartphone; 75 percent of women versus 67 percent of men. Women be gaming!

Moreover, the research showed that those brands that offered games during that time period saw a spike in their Brand Index score. For instance, Stouffer’s launched a game on Facebook, “Farmer’s Harvest” in Farmville, with promotions and moved up from number 363 to number 303.

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Gamespot recently surveyed 2,285 of its users, and found that 28 percent still trust Sony although they’ll be changing some of the info they’re willing to share. Nearly a quarter (23 percent) say they trust Sony more because now they’ll have to put better controls in place. The company is, in fact, now offering ID theft protection. And only 14 percent said they don’t trust Sony anymore.

With the company still reeling from a series of costly hacker attacks, this astonishing level of lingering trust may be the best asset Sony has right now for staging a business comeback.

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There’s been much debate over the link between violent video games and real-life displays of aggression/depression. Next month, in fact, the Supreme Court will decide if selling certain titles to minors should be downright illegal.

Rockstar Games‘ recently released L.A. Noire — with its gritty, 1940s backdrop of corruption, drug deals, and murder — is a likely ban candidate. Though widely praised for its gaming-meets-cinema style and storyline, rave reviews don’t have much clout with the judges. But here’s something that might: At least one expert contends L.A. Noire may provide a new treatment for Asperger’s Syndrome.

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Hill & Knowlton has partnered with the Rovio Mobile blockbuster game Angry Birds to host a seminar at the 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity about brand engagement and what brands can learn from the game.

Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio Mobile’s “Mighty Eagle” will be presenting, along with by H&K’s global strategy director, Amanda Groty.

For those who can’t be at the seminar live in France on June 21st, you can follow along @HillandKnowlton using #HKCannes. The partnership between the Cannes Festival and H&K was announced in November.