American Idol online… (King.com + FremantleMedia [RTL Group/Bertelsmann])

After “Deal or No Deal,” “1 vs 100,” “Who Wants to be A Millionaire,” and “Big Brother” a company called King.com now also has the license for “American Idol.” Extending the existing brand into online game space, King.com is really just giving you a more-or-less interactive (someone say iTV?) version.

“The idea behind the game is to really re-create the experience of going before the ‘American Idol’ jury,” said Robert Norton, vp business development in the U.S. at King.com. “Players will create a personal avatar and dress them in costumes and then use the cursors on the keyboard to sing and dance to the music.” (source)

Quoting a whopping $250,000 to develop the game, it is apparently the most expensive “casual Web game ever made.” FremantleMedia (wholly owned by the RTL Group, which is 90% owned by Bertelsmann) seems excited.

Discussion (13 comments)
sabrina November 11th, 2008 (10:36 pm)

you NEED to put american idol BACK on KING.com because it was REALLY FUN!!!!=]

milbank star January 2nd, 2009 (7:41 pm)

American idol is an awesome game. so many people go on king .com provided by yahoo.
If u want to keep ur 2 favorite fans put American Idol back on King.com. Please with caviar on top.

Mandy January 17th, 2009 (8:12 pm)

King.com doesnt have American idol anymore

bryan burrows January 25th, 2009 (3:41 pm)

i want american idol back on king .com what is wrong with you!!!

kamaria February 14th, 2009 (4:11 pm)

seriously it was fun why did u take it off

kamaria February 14th, 2009 (4:12 pm)

Ok well amarican idol is a awsome game what was so wrong with it that you took it off ? we all enjoyed it. Well i hope me and everyone elses commets persuade you to put it back on king.com

Tea March 16th, 2009 (8:43 pm)

PUT IT BACK ON!!!!! I DID IT ALL THE TIME AND NOW I’M BORED!!!!

Brooke May 26th, 2009 (3:58 pm)

Why did you get rid of it? That game was so fun, by the way, King.com just lost a lot of users due to that. :(

kellie September 24th, 2009 (5:43 pm)

wtf why did they take that game off!!!!

gabby November 10th, 2009 (5:58 pm)

fuck you the ones who took the game off king.com iplayed that game all the time but one day i went on it there was no american idol game anymore boohoo fuck you.

jennifer December 26th, 2009 (1:48 am)

king.com was much better off with american idol but now that they took it off lesspeople go on it

plz put it back on king.com!!!!!

jennifer December 26th, 2009 (1:49 am)

king.com was much better off with american idol but now that they took it off less people go on it

plz put it back on king.com!!!!!

jasmine February 6th, 2010 (3:50 pm)

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy i been x searching for dat game for trwo yeas now tear tear plz put on or else fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk u guys ((king .com)) azz whoels

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February 28th, 2007
Joost van Dreunen
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About Waffler

Joost is fascinated by games and human behavior. His research explores video games as an entryway to contemporary media culture. After completing a Master's degree in Media studies in Amsterdam, he continued his research in New York. There he was project manager on a landmark investigation of three decades of ownership trends in the American media landscape, the results of which were part of a congressional testimony, a series of articles and a book. In 2010 he received his doctorate from Columbia University for his dissertation titled "Social Gaming and Communicative Exchange." Joost currently teaches at the NYU Game Center.

In addition to his academic pursuits, Joost is also founder and CEO of an online games research firm called SuperData. In early 2010 the company secured multi-year seed funding, and today employs five people. Clients include publishers such as Electronic Arts, SEGA, Wargaming.net and Pokémon as well as all the major Wall street firms.

Joost lives in the East Village with his wife Janelle and son Maximus.

Selected Presentations
  • Video Game Data & Trends, Ottawa International Game Conference, Canada, 2013.
  • Business Principles and Market Trends for Multi-Platform Games, Festival of Games, Amsterdam 2013.
  • 2013 Game Changers: How Will Devices Impact Your Future Growth? (keynote), Game Developer Conference, 2013.
  • Free-to-Play State of the Industry, Game Connection Paris, 2012.
  • Online Games Research: Getting Publishers to Play Nice, New Media, New Demand Measurement Methodologies, 2012 Columbia University.
  • The Great Unboxing: Major Trends in the Transition to Digital and Free-to-Play Gaming, DCM East, 2012.
  • The Rise of Free-to-Play, moderator and co-organizer, Re:Play - The Theory, Practice, and Business of Video Games, 2012, NYU.
  • Trading Card Games: Delivering the Digital Promise, PAX East, 2012.
  • From Asteroids to Zynga: Three Decades of Game Design and Revenue Models, GDC Online, 2011.
  • Video Game Industry, 2010 Fordham University, 2010.
  • Social Media and TV, LATVfest, 2010 Los Angeles.
  • Top 5 Trends in Gaming, NY Games Conference, New York, 2009.
  • Kids, Tweens & Teens, State of Play IV, New York Law School, New York, 2009.
  • Game Theory, Play Money, Columbia Business School, New York, 2008. (event organizer)
  • Media Economics: The Question of Ownership, Hunter College, New York, 2008.
  • On Game Mod Communities, 106th Annual Meeting of American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, 2007.
  • Game Mods & Post-Industrial Play, CITI Visiting Scholar’s Brown Bag Lunch Seminar Series, Columbia Business School, New York, October 2007.
  • The Video Game Vocabulary and the Production of Meaning, MiT5: Creativity, Ownership and Collaboration in the Digital Age, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, April 2007. (abstract)
  • Cities, Games and Media: Playing with and in the Urban Setting, Time|Space Dynamics in Urban Settings, Technishen Universität, Berlin, May 2007.
  • The Aesthetic Vocabulary of Video Games, Seventh Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, November 2006.
  • Haussmann’s Media Environment (revised), Sixth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association, Fordham University, New York, May 2005.
  • Media Technology & Society: Video Game Theory, Dissertation outline, Columbia University, New York, April 2005.
  • Good Day New York, Fox Television, aired August 20th, debate with Attorney Sanford Rubenstein on videogame violence, August 2004.
Contact: joost at waffler dot org

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