The Orange balloon race
June 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Something good from Iain Tait and the guys at Poke, a balloon race across the internet ad the furthest one wins a prize. Site owners can sign up at playballoonacy.com and register their site to be part of the fun (see balloon in the corner of this site). The one that goes the furthest in 7 days wins a £20,000 VIP trip to Ibiza for you and 7 friends. I was planning to have a year off from Ibiza this year, but couldn’t resist taking part.
IKEA offer furniture to The Sims players
May 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
IKEA have teamed up with The Sims 2 creators EA Games to enable users to place IKEA products in their virtual homes. The offering will be brought out as an add-on software package later on this year and will offer products such as beds, coffee tables and sofas.
PMOG fun
May 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Last week I was directed to PMOG (passively multiplayer online game) by Charlie, an application that lets you play against others simply through browsing the web. “With a game head-up display in Firefox, players can bomb each other, wage war over web sites, and lead other users on web missions. Ordinary web sites become caches for items and currency. PMOG fuses an MMO into our WWW.” I have only recently started playing but have successfully blown up a couple of people and can see myself becoming addicted very easily.
Rockstar Games takes product placement through to purchase
March 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto 4) is allowing players to link through to Amazon and purchase each track they hear within the game. The mechanism is built into the game’s mobile phone system and as the character drives around listening to the radio, they can bookmark a song by dialing the number ZIT-555-0100 to get sent a text message back with the artist and track details. Via PSFK
Microsoft’s first game for Surface
March 6, 2008 | 1 Comment
Microsoft have developed the first game for Surface. The game is called Firefly and the concept remind me of Hungry Hippo’s whereby the user has to catch the firefly’s and bring them towards them until they can trap them in their glass jar. Sarcastic Gamer give their first-hand review of the game in this video.
New ActionAid campaign asks who pays?
February 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Nonsense London have just created this fun game for ActionAid inviting users to digitally dress up and make their own animation. It is to support ActionAid’s Who Pays? campaign who are lobbying for tighter regulations of how UK supermarkets deal with producers in developing countries. The game features voice overs from comedians Bill Bailey and Katy Brand, and allows people to upload a photo of themselves, and in the form of a banana, cashew nut or pear, fight (in the style of their choice) with some supermarket trollies. The user then has the option to send their campaign to others via the usual channels with the added inclusion of providing the code to embed within your blog/MySpace (nice tactic to get your campaign viral).
Halo 3 site
September 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This is such a good website to promote the launch of Halo 3. Created by AKQA, the entire set was hand built which allows users to fully explore the vast landscape of the model. The site holds nice little interactive spots allowing the user to view elements in more detail, and offers other benefits such as downloadable content. I am under no illusion that trying to promote something as interactive as a game is ever going to be easy, but this site certainly delivers a positive feeling toward the product.
O2 stareout rugby challenge
August 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
O2 have launched a new game to tie in with their Scrum in the Park event, where users have to out stare their challengers: British Rugby’s Mike Tindall, Josh Lewsey and Tom Rees. To play the game users need to position themselves in from of a webcam and using BitmapData, the webcam can detect when the user has indeed blinked. As well as the game the site offers an array of extras including a `making of’ movie. The campaign was developed by Archibald Ingall Stretton and is an excellent example of advances in technology being used in an engaging way to connect with consumers.
The Playseat Evolution
August 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Playseats have come up with the ultimate driving experience for gaming fanatics, a racing seat that holds your steering wheel and control pedal, providing an experience that is almost as good as the real thing. Held together in a metal frame, the seat folds away for storage when not in use so as not to take over your home completely.
Gillette Stealth
August 19, 2007 | 1 Comment
Gillette have launched a new game called The Undetectables to promote their Stealth range. Your mission is to act with precision and power (tenuous link admittedly) to recover the stealth razor which has been stolen by the 5 o’clock shadow. The game is clearly taken from Mission Impossible even down to the individual tasks, however the user is able to enter a competition to win 3 days at spy school so this fact can be forgiven. The post production is of a very high quality and overall this is a really nice strategy for an FMCG.
