Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 188

It must be the most amazing PR coup of all time! Only a couple of weeks after the release of Electronic Arts' The Godfather and the real-life Godfather is arrested after 40 years on the run! Is there no end to the budgets publicity people will stretch to?

The rule of omerta precludes me from naming any names about who was responsible for this piece of genius, but if any EA PRs are found dangling from a London bridge or caught wearing concrete boots in built-up watery areas then you'll know the reason why.

Seriously, the arrest of ALLEGED Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano this week will have a positive effect on sales of the game. It's all down to the subconscious and how the mind reacts to extraneous information. Read about The Godfather, more likely to buy The Godfather.

I once entered a Marlboro telephone competition to win a Ferrari and had to say the word 'Marlboro' every time I answered a question. Lo and behold, I found myself buying a pack of Marlboro that night instead of the usual B&H. Freaky, man.

And so it goes with the mobile video business because if users make videos they're more likely to buy them. Such is the case with the 3 network's See Me TV service. As usual, the best ideas are simple. Users make a 30-second video, send it to by MMS to See Me TV and earn 1p every time somebody downloads it.

Those who download it pay 10p for the privilege - thus earning a whooping margin for the operator. According to 3, users can earn thousands of pounds by submitting videos, but there are 100 pence in every pound, so that sounds a bit rich as opposed to making anybody rich.

Even so, even if this did start as a MMS marketing exercise and 3 have stumbled into gold dust, this initiative is a purely mobile service that may become the eBay of its day. What's more, its success has been purely viral and there has been very little PR.

Which only goes to show that word of mouth works better than people doing your talking for you - although this is a statement that might be lost on the leading member of a particular Sicilian organisation.