I still have to come up with a good title..

Second prototype..!

If there is a boat fight there will most probably be someone shooting with a water cannon. Probably an evil japanese whaler with an angry face.

Mouse.down to activate the cannon, Mouse.up to deactivate it.

This is just to prove that it works. The idea is to have the ships aiming the water cannon at you while you try to approach them to do whatever you want to do.

..You pirate!

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Here the result of some random prototype in “naval guerrilla” style.

I’m preparing bunches of code that may come useful for the actual game, according to what the concept dictates when developed.

Here the functions that i tried to focus on:

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Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Our mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.

Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations.

from http://www.seashepherd.org/who-we-are/

An analysis of the organization and of the message to brand will follow briefly.

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..a brand new AdverGame by Adidas.

A graphic novel that reveals the true value of the German National Team jersey”.

The game, via an impressive usage of storytelling, brings you back in time through three of the most historically important football matches, with the task of winning the games, reminding the world the true identity of the team wearing the shirt..

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I just found an interesting set of resources: It consists on a set of graphs representing the results of surveys conducted by TNS, Gamesindustry.com, and SPIL GAMES, investigating demographics, time and money spent, gaming trends and age distribution per game platform across Europe and the United States.

The graphs consist of:

• 5 comparitive graphs between US and European countries
• 3 general graphs on gaming population, media consumption and platform preference
• 5 graphs on age distribution per game platform
• 5 graphs on media consumption per age group

Find the graphs following this link.

Read an analysis of the results of the survey at the following link.

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..Translated from the original dutch site, blame Google translate if it doesn’t make sense..

VOLVO OCEAN RACE GAME | UNITEDGAMES

Registered for: Best Online Game, Best Advergame

Game description:
The Volvo Ocean Race Game free2play is a browser-based massive multiplayer online game where players control a virtual sailboat. The sails are parallel with the real gamers Volvo Ocean Race and go around the world in 10 stages.
Players can choose their own name and colors for their boat and sails. They should consider the wind while sailing and sail the best choice for every type of situation, so as first to arrive at the finish. The wind is updated every 12 hours and based on that the players can determine what their rate is forecast. By using the ranking everyone can see exactly what his/her position is. Through the Friends groups and ingame you can rate your friends and follow up with them between competitions.
The game is displayed in a clear browser window and can thus also be played worldwide by anyone with Internet access.
[..google messed up..]
On each stage there are several prizes and the ultimate winner gets a Volvo C30.

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Surfing the Net for case studies of successful advergames I came across something catchy..

Resistance2018 is an advergame launched by Sony in april 2009, with the purpose of promoting the videogame about the last Terminator movie.

What makes this advergame particular is the “platform” it has been launched on: Twitter.

By the 25th of May (the movie appeared on the screen first on the 27th of may) the game was followed by about 3000 people.

The principle of the game lies in accomplishing missions by resolving enigmas and answering coded questions based on the characters and the plot of the movie. A few tweets liven up the film and bring new information about this war between men and machines.

The objective is to get as many points as possible and answer in the least amount of time possible. The more points you get, the more you get promoted and have the possibility of joining other squads, including John Connor’s. More points also increase the difficulty of the game.

from http://www.culture-buzz.com/blog/Resistance-2018-Play-On-Twitter-2162.html

The game makes for an interesting weaving of gaming, social media, and marketing that strikes a delicate balance between being engaging and fun without being tiresomely involving.

With participants pinged with messages from @resistance2018 on the hour, and puzzles being delivered every other hour, messages are kept at a manageable rate.

from http://www.psfk.com/2009/05/twittering-the-human-resistance-for-terminator-salvation-twitter-based-advergame.html

Read more at:

• http://www.resistance2018.com/
• http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/04/20/sony-launches-terminator-salvation-twitter-viral-game/
• http://www.culture-buzz.com/blog/Resistance-2018-Play-On-Twitter-2162.html
• http://www.psfk.com/2009/05/twittering-the-human-resistance-for-terminator-salvation-twitter-based-advergame.html

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I intend to drive this project in a direction that will allow me to explore the relations between the following concepts:

AdverGaming, Experience Economy, Viral Marketing and Guerrilla Marketing.

The relations, most importantly, have to be proved, and then synthesized in order to fully appreciate the value of them.

So far, bits and pieces of information that made me think of relations between these concepts are:

• Advergaming as a mix of Entertainment and Advertisment
• Interaction and Immersion help retention of the message marketed (Experience Economy)
• a successfully entertaining game will attract users to play the game multiple times (repetition allows effectiveness of marketing)
• mouth-to-mouth spread of the game would increase the viral potential of the campaign
• advergames can be developed in order to provide easy measurability over the campaign (Guerrilla marketing)
• new and innovative way of market messages or ideas, more effective than popups or banners

For this reason, Advergaming is thought to be a valuable resource in the marketing arsenal of a company. This project is meant to prove this hypothesis.

Problem Statement:

Basing the research on case studies, this report will analyze why AdverGaming can be a valuable resource for Xcompany as a marketing strategy.

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Final Project, 4th semester Multimedia Design. Winter ‘09.

This is the last chance to carry out a project under the protective wings of this education.

Perfect chance to end doing something cool, some well deserved fun..!

During this project I’ll be exploring the concept of Advergaming, studying the values associated with it, understanding what is it’s difference from edutainment, what has it been used for and how can it be used in new and innovative ways.

This project will be a “prosieguo” to the game design project carried out during the 3rd semester. The experience gained during that project will hopefully help me seeing through this new approach to game design.

But first of all, what does the term AdverGaming actually means?

Advergaming is an immersive mix of advertising and entertainment that takes the form of video games. [..] This interaction leads to much better retention of the product or message the product advertising is trying to get across to you. As an additional bonus, games that are especially entertaining, clever or challenging get passed on to friends, creating the viral marketing that all companies desire for their products.

An advergame can be defined so as a game with the purpose of communicating messages, marketing products or ideas, brand companies’ values etc.

I expect this project to allow me to work on both the technical aspects of this education, having to develop an application, but also on more business/communication oriented aspects, studying how advergaming can be related to experience economy and viral marketing, leading eventually to the concept of guerrilla marketing.

I will base my research on an approach as practical as possible, going through case studies of famous advergames, basing the theories learned on a solid “real life” foundation.

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