Video Project

So my friend and I made a bet where I had to lose 15 pounds by the middle of May. I decided to do a short video on that. The bet was, if I don't lose 15 pounds, then I would have to spar one of our friends without any fighting gear. I decided to choose the most trained of our friends, Jay.

Here's my video for final project:



It's been a month and a half that we made the bet and since I didn't reach my goal. I will be facing this man:

Gerald's E-Portfolio for MCOM 63

Dreamweaver: My Website

Photoshop:

http://www.jmc.sjsu.edu/student/newmedia_fang/s2009/gerald/tigrex.jpg

InDesign:

http://www.jmc.sjsu.edu/student/newmedia_fang/s2009/gerald/indesignbrochure.pdf

Capcom at E3

Every year around June, the biggest show of the video-game industry takes place in Los Angeles. This year, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 2 through June 4.

E3 used to be open to the public but is now invitation only. In 2005, 70,000 attended E3, and 60,000 in 2006. Since it is now invitation only, the attendence averaged 3000 to 5000. This year, E3 is opening up and now including employees with purchasing power on the retail level.

The show is used by many game developers and publishers to show off their new software titles and game-related hardware. Unlike most video game conventions, E3 has a "Best of" awards session (see post on pre-E3 Judges day).

So what does Capcom have in store for E3 this year? Here's our line-up:

At the show, Capcom will be focusing on the following games:
Dark Void (PS3, 360, PC)
Lost Planet 2 (currently 360, PC)
Dead Rising 2 (will be "behind closed doors")
Spyborgs (Wii)
Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles (Wii)
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP)
Marvel vs Capcom 2 (digital release for PS3, 360)
Fate Unlimited Codes (digital PSP release)
Street Fighter IV (PC)
Bionic Commando (PC)
Mega Man Star Force 3 (DS)
Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil (Wii)
Capcom Mystery Game (playable in booth!)
plus games from Capcom's mobile group, Capcom Interactive!

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Pub Night

During the Game Developer's Conference last March, we hosted a "pub night" showcasing our upcoming title, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. The reasoning behind the "pub night" was to allow press to get their hands on the latest installment in Capcom's most popular series, Monster Hunter.

The first pub night we had at 111 Minna was a great success that we are planning to host two other pub nights before the game releases next month. This week, while my supervisor is in New York City for a press tour, he will be hosting a pub night there.

Our next pub night will bring us back to San Francisco and will take place at Twenty-First Amendment next week, May 20. Since I couldn't make it out on the NYC press tour, I will definitely be at the pub night next week. What better way to celebrate the end of finals than drinking and showing off my favorite game to local enthusiast press?

Maybe I'll update this post with pictures after the event.

Capcom's Pre-E3 Judges Day/LA Press Tour

Last weekend, I was down in Los Angeles for Capcom's pre-E3 judges day and LA press tour. Pre-E3 judges day is an event where companies that will be attending the Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3, show off their games to the judges for awards. The reason behind having a judges day a month before the actual show is so that companies can show the judges their upcoming titles in a more intimate setting. During the show, there is so much that is going on that the judges would be distracted from checking out the titles.

Some of the games that we showed off to the pre-E3 judges are:
Lost Planet 2, Resident Evil: the Darkside Chronicles, Dark Void and a game that I can not mention since it is under embargo until the show.

Other games that we showed off to the Los Angeles press were: Spyborgs, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Fate, and one of our most anticipated downloadable games, Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Usually I bring my camera with me on business trips/trade shows, but this time around I forgot to bring my camera. Otherwise I would have posted some pictures.

Street Fighter IV Tournament Finals

On Saturday April 18, Gamestop held their national Street Fighter IV tournament finals at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Eight of the nation's best Street Fighter IV players came out to compete to see who is the best in the nation at Street Fighter IV. Not only did they win an actual Street Fighter IV cabinet, arcade machine, the winner of the tournament, Justin Wong, got to battle Korea's national champion, Japan's national champion, and Japan's legendary Street Fighter player, Daigo Umehara.

My friend Vina and I at the event.

My staff badge.

My First Press Tour

A couple of weeks ago, I went on my first press tour with my supervisor. We visited two media outlets, IGN.com and Future Media Publishing's Playstation The Official Magazine. The purpose for our press tour was to do an enthusiast media reach out for Capcom's upcoming title, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, out on June 23.

Our first stop was at IGN where we met up with Greg Miller. My supervisor and I brought along with us, four PlayStation Portables, PSPs, and four copies of the game. First off, we showed Miller the single player aspects of the game while in-game play footage was being captured. After showing off the single-player game, we all sat down together and did some questing together. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite supports up to four players but since there was only the three of us, we went without a fourth player.

While playing, my PSP was still hooked up to the capture station, capturing in-game footage of the three of us playing together. We went on various quests, and fought many different kinds of monsters. Although we failed in completing the quests, Miller said, he enjoyed playing it with us a lot. The in-game footage of our play session can be seen here.

After our play session ended, we joined up with Chris Roper and recorded a podcast session. It was my first podcast so I was a bit nervous; you can hear my nervousness in the podcast. We chatted for about 20 minutes talking about Monster Hunter Freedom Unite trying to get IGN's podcast listeners aware of the upcoming title.

You can download the IGN podcast off iTunes. The podcast is titled, IGN's Podcast Beyond! Episode 87, or you can just get it here. Our chat session starts at the 13 minute mark of the podcast.

After our visit to the IGN offices, we went across the street and stopped by the offices of Future Media Publishing. We met up with Eric Brachter of GamesRadar.com and Teresa Dun of PlayStation: the Official Magazine or PTOM for short.

Again we sat down with them for an hour and showed them the game trying to generate awareness. Only difference is, there was no capture station for them to capture any in-game footage.

It was a good press tour, not to mention my first press tour. With this bit of experience, I can't wait to go on another press tour in the future. Next stop, Los Angeles for the pre-E3 Judges Day.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite at Game Developers' Conference 2009

The month of March has been a busy one in terms of events; it's not even summer yet! Capcom's presnece at this year's Game Developers' Conference (GDC) wasn't as big as it was last year. A few from the product development team spoke at panels but this year Capcom didn't showcase much. You can't blame them, since GDC took place right after the launch of two AAA titles.

We did show off one little game though. In March of 2008, Capcom released a little gem titled Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G in Japan. It was the best selling game (over 3 million copies sold) of 2008 in Japan, beating out many big name titles such as Metal Gear Solid 4 and Super Mario Galaxy.

This summer, Capcom will be releasing that same game under the title Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and to celebrate the release, we invited various press outlets to our small event at 111 Minna Street Gallery in San Francico. At the event, we had two tables set up with 4 PlayStation Portables at each table. We then invited people to come sit down and check out the game while they enjoy the free food and drinks, provided by Capcom.

The event was a success. Initially 20 people RSVP'd but we had over 100 come out to the event. The first Monster Hunter Freedom Unite "pub night" was a success and it definitely won't be the last.

Trailer for Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G


Pictures from the event:

Resident Evil 5 Launch Event

Friday March 13 2009, Resident Evil 5 was released. In a recent press release, Capcom announced 4 million units shipped worldwide; and sold 400,000 copies in its first week in Japan. I got the chance to help out with yet another event. This time Capcom didn't have to do anything, the event was all sponsored by Game Stop.

On Thursday, March 12, Game Stop set up a huge tent in Union Square to host the Resident Evil 5 launch event. The side of the tent I worked on housed many kiosks allowing consumers to play full retail versions of Resident Evil 5. On the other side, there were performers, some of the voice actors from the game (see previous post) and a VIP section. IGN's Jessica Chobot was on hand to cover the event and I believe G4 TV's Adam Sessler was there too. At least he got into the event, unlike the Street Fighter IV launch party from the month before.

The event was a success. As midnight drew near, the attendees started getting antsy and couldn't wait to finally get their hands on the game. Sadly I didn't take any pictures during the event or video footage, but hare is a trailer of the game (taken from YouTube).

2008 Tokyo Game Show Resident Evil 5 Trailer

Resident Evil 5 Influencer Event in LA.

February and March saw the release of two of the most anticipated games, Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5. Last month, Capcom held the Street Fighter IV launch party in Los Angeles. At the beginning of March, I got to go back to Los Angeles to help out with a Microsoft sponsored influencer event, show casing Resident Evil 5 a week before the game was released.

sThe event was held at a small venue called Soul Assassins Studio owned by famous L.A. artists, Mister Cartoon and Estevan Oriol. Many people showed up to check out the game a week before it was released. Also there was Xbox Live community manager, Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb who interviewed my boss. For you Xbox owners, you can see the video on Inside Xbox, the episode is titled "Resident Evil 5 Launch." You can even see me briefly in the video right before my boss is filmed on camera.



A couple of pics taken at the event:

Me with voice actor, T.J. Storm. He does the voice for the character Josh in Resident Evil 5.

Capcom's PR team and Community manager.

From left to right, my boss, Chris Kramer, Jason Allen, Seth Killian (Community), and me with Melody Pfeiffer in front.

Wondercon 2009

This weekend, February 27th through March 1st, Wondercon is taking place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The convention happens every year and is smaller in comparison to the San Diego Comic-Con which takes place in the summer.

For those that don't know, Wondercon, like Comic-Con is a convention that happens every year. What started as a convention where comic book fans would meet has now evolved to include many aspects of pop culture such as movies, tv shows, anime/manga and video games.

This year, Capcom had the biggest booth on the floor. The games we are showing/demo-ing are Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, Bionic Commando, Flock, Moto GP Wii and the game I'm working on with my supervisor, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.

Here's a picture of me next to a pop-up banner featuring one of the new monsters in the game:

Working events like these can be very tiring. I'm glad that tomorrow will be the last day of Wondercon '09, until next year. The next two weeks will be pretty busy in terms of Capcom events with our Resident Evil 5 Influencer event in LA and the launch party of Resident Evil 5 the week after in Union Square in San Francisco (blog posts on these later).

Street Fighter IV Launch Party

Last week was the launch of Capcom's Street Fighter IV, which has shipped 2 million units world wide. The week before that, on Feb 12th, we had our luanch party for the title at the Geffen at the Museum of Contemporary Art near Little Tokyo in Los Angeles.

I arrived Wednesday a little bit after noon and headed to the museum. The cab ride from the museum was pretty expensive. Upon arrival, I run into the head of creative services at Capcom and proceeded into the museum. I get there and help my co-worker Darin set up products (t-shirts, hats, peripherals, trinkets, etc.) in display cases. I even got to handle props from the new Street Fighter movie starring Kristin Kreuk.

Afterwards I helped with the setting up of kiosks with XBox 360s and PlayStation 3s. There were many kiosks set up where guests could play. We finished most of the set up by 8 pm and all went out to dinner at some not-so-great bar/lunge/restaurant type deal.

The next day, day of the launch event, we finished what needed to be done until the start of the party. People have been camping in line since 9 am that morning. By the time the launch party was about to start, we were briefed on our roles for the duration of the event.

The creative services intern, another co-worker and I were scheduled to do crowd control. The party was supposed to start at 8 pm but the line got so long that we decided to let people in an hour earlier. An hour and a half later, the venue was at capacity. The Los Angeles fire marshall came out and stated that we were at capacity and couldn't let anymore people in. At this point, the line reached the street and began to wrap around the building.

At peak, there were probably about 4,0000 people at the event with half of them outside. By 10:30, we managed to get the rest of the guests inside and I and the other staff finally got inside. It was a pretty huge event.

There were many celebrities at the event. Besides some of the cast members from the Street Fighter movie quite a handful of stars came out. Supposedly Steven Spieldberg came to the event but I don't know if that was true or not. Some other stars included Zarchary Levi and Joshua Gomez of NBC's TV show, Chuck. LeVar Burton of Star Trek: the Next Generation and Reading Rainbow fame came out to join in the festivities and even Jason Kyson Lee who plays Ando in Heroes came out.

It was quite an event. Aside from the stars, we had Supreme Soul of season 2 of America's Best Dance crew perform a Street Fighter themed routine. DJ Q-Bert was also out there spinning on the 1's and 2's.

Personally, being in public relations, I could care less for the stars. I wasn't star struck like one of my buddies. All I cared about was meeting people from gaming press. As my boss says, "Celebrities won't do much for you."

Here are some of the pictures from the launch party:

More on my Facebook.

Street Fighter IV Launch Party

Next Wednesday, there is a possibility that I will not be attending class. Why you may ask? To help Capcom's events, marketing and PR teams set up for the Street Fighter IV launch party. With Street Fighter IV scheduled to release on February 17th, 2009, Capcom Entertainment will be hosting a launch party.

The event will be next Thursday February 12th at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art located at 152 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90012. It's going to be a HUGE event with many guest appearances by celebrities. Not only are we celebrating the launch of one of the biggest games of the year, but we're also celebrating 20 years of the franchise's existence.

There will be various activities and lot of free stuff to be given away. Guests can participate in tournaments and win prizes. There will also be raffles in which guests can win copies of Street Fighter IV a week before the title releases for the gaming system of their choice! This event is going to be HUGE!

Blogging

I think blogging is another great way to get our messages out there. Being in public relations, we can no longer rely on just magazines and websites. Being in/following the video-game industry, I get a lot of my news through various blogs such as Joystiq, Destructoid, Kotaku, and even the company I work for, Capcom. My own personal blog on my company's corporate blog can be found here.



I'm no stranger to the blogging community. Although I no longer update my blog, I've had my blog on Xanga since 2001. This blog is my 4th blog, 5th if you count my blog on MySpace. Since I have gotten my foot in the video-game industry, the focus of my blog for this class will be related to video-games, in particular, titles published by Capcom and the game I'm assisting my supervisor on, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.