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Hollenshead was interviewed by gamespot, the things on the table were Rage, Doom 4, Quake Live, Wii, ID Tech 5 and E3. I will just paste Quake Live part here. You can read the rest of the review from gamespot - http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6207773.html
GS: So Quake Live went into open beta February 24. How has the response been so far?
TH: The response is literally overwhelming--we had more people show up than we had slots for people to play in initially. But that was--it's kind of a good problem to have, and we'd definitely rather have that problem than the opposite. We had 60,000 people in the queue to get into the game at one point, but there's no queue now. Anybody wants to come in, we're ready to play.
So now the issue is that we need to find out who's playing and who the people are, so we can actually get demographic data out to appeal to the advertisers. We have the people, now we need to get the advertisers.
GS: Have you guys announced a hard launch date for Quake Live?
TH: We don't have a hard launch date. We'll probably just roll it out. We're in the beta process, because there's a few things that, because of the numbers and the sheer amount of data that we're processing, that we want to get to. Right now, for instance, we have leaderboards turned off. Obviously that's not where we ultimately will be.
GS: So are the ads turned on yet in the game?
TH: We have ads in the games, and some of them will be replaced by real ads later on. Quake Live has an ad now, but we're obviously not going to advertise Quake Live in Quake Live. QuakeCon is another large ad. But those are sort of more just to test things out. But we're actually starting to have ads from Dell and a few other people as well. But all the stuff works, I mean, it probably works better than we even could have expected.
GS: What's the response, then, in terms of users as far as the ads go? Have you heard any complaints?
TH: Not at all. Wen we made Quake III, the game was intended to be sort of a spectator sport. With Quake Live, we made it more into a sort of sport. It's just like if you're watching a hockey game. You see--but you're not bothered by--ads on the boards. Or when you're watching baseball, you've got an ad behind the catcher at the backstop. So I think those things, in terms of a competitive sport, are things that people expect. It almost actually makes it kind of cool that we have real ads in it. It sort of makes it like a real sport.
Flash Player 9 is required to watch this video.
GS: So do you think the ad-supported, browser-based shooter is going to be a growing trend?
TH: Well, I mean, Quake Live is still a big experiment. When we embarked on the project, we didn't know how much it was going to appeal to people. What we know now is that in one month we're over 50 percent above our target for the first month, in terms of accounts. So that's been a huge success for us.
But advertising, in this economy, it's a tough market, it's a tough sell, and advertising in games is kind of new. It's not your typical TV or magazine ads or things like that. But one of the unique things that Quake Live offers is sort of the new aspect of having these in-game streaming ads, combined with your traditional banner ads across the whole Quake Live site. And so the ability to not only just deliver impressions within the game, but actually convert those into click-through with banner ads within the games as well.
So it's a lot different than what you would normally expect if somebody's saying, "Oh, well, on a console game, a 360 or PS3 game, I'm partnering with advertising agency XYZ or whatever, and I'm just going to get these in-game impressions." But advertisers still, I think, are a little unclear about what all that means. I think we have to make the connection between impressions to actual actionable things.
GS: So Quake Live went into open beta February 24. How has the response been so far?
TH: The response is literally overwhelming--we had more people show up than we had slots for people to play in initially. But that was--it's kind of a good problem to have, and we'd definitely rather have that problem than the opposite. We had 60,000 people in the queue to get into the game at one point, but there's no queue now. Anybody wants to come in, we're ready to play.
So now the issue is that we need to find out who's playing and who the people are, so we can actually get demographic data out to appeal to the advertisers. We have the people, now we need to get the advertisers.
GS: Have you guys announced a hard launch date for Quake Live?
TH: We don't have a hard launch date. We'll probably just roll it out. We're in the beta process, because there's a few things that, because of the numbers and the sheer amount of data that we're processing, that we want to get to. Right now, for instance, we have leaderboards turned off. Obviously that's not where we ultimately will be.
GS: So are the ads turned on yet in the game?
TH: We have ads in the games, and some of them will be replaced by real ads later on. Quake Live has an ad now, but we're obviously not going to advertise Quake Live in Quake Live. QuakeCon is another large ad. But those are sort of more just to test things out. But we're actually starting to have ads from Dell and a few other people as well. But all the stuff works, I mean, it probably works better than we even could have expected.
GS: What's the response, then, in terms of users as far as the ads go? Have you heard any complaints?
TH: Not at all. Wen we made Quake III, the game was intended to be sort of a spectator sport. With Quake Live, we made it more into a sort of sport. It's just like if you're watching a hockey game. You see--but you're not bothered by--ads on the boards. Or when you're watching baseball, you've got an ad behind the catcher at the backstop. So I think those things, in terms of a competitive sport, are things that people expect. It almost actually makes it kind of cool that we have real ads in it. It sort of makes it like a real sport.
Flash Player 9 is required to watch this video.
GS: So do you think the ad-supported, browser-based shooter is going to be a growing trend?
TH: Well, I mean, Quake Live is still a big experiment. When we embarked on the project, we didn't know how much it was going to appeal to people. What we know now is that in one month we're over 50 percent above our target for the first month, in terms of accounts. So that's been a huge success for us.
But advertising, in this economy, it's a tough market, it's a tough sell, and advertising in games is kind of new. It's not your typical TV or magazine ads or things like that. But one of the unique things that Quake Live offers is sort of the new aspect of having these in-game streaming ads, combined with your traditional banner ads across the whole Quake Live site. And so the ability to not only just deliver impressions within the game, but actually convert those into click-through with banner ads within the games as well.
So it's a lot different than what you would normally expect if somebody's saying, "Oh, well, on a console game, a 360 or PS3 game, I'm partnering with advertising agency XYZ or whatever, and I'm just going to get these in-game impressions." But advertisers still, I think, are a little unclear about what all that means. I think we have to make the connection between impressions to actual actionable things.
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