Coca-Cola’s Summer Battle
In Spain Coca-Cola has launched the multiplayer advergame “Summer Battle” to support its online marketing effort through the official site www.cocacola.es.
The Summer Battle has been created by BetyByte, I didn’t test it because you need to download it and install it. Of course it doesn’t work with Mac.
A part from the fact it doesn’t support Apple, which isn’t actually a big problem, I’m not sure that requiring people to download and install the game is a smart move. Of course this gives you the chance to great a better game but, at the same time, I believe you loose several potential users that don’t want to waste time installing it or fear the installation could bring problems to the computer.
Cocacola.es has more than 1 million users of its downloable games and its the biggest online community in here Spain.
There are several games, all of them joined with a “hub application” similar to HabboHotel.
They even have a credit card called “Movimiento CocaCola” (Cocacola Movement) and they are partnered with the biggest bank in Spain and Latin America: BSCH (they also own Abbey in the UK and other banks in Europe).
I think it’s actually a SMART movement from CocaCola.
The Movimiento Coca-Cola is absolutely a smart move.
If you want to target a young audience community building is one of the best things you can do, I agree with you.
I didn’t know so many people download games from the site, that’s why I thought playing online would have been better.
I raised a doubt, and I’m glad to be wrong.
Thanks for your comment.
As I just pointed out on our blog (http://www.fuelgames.com/blog/?p=21) in general I think it is much better not to force users to download and install your application.
When you do that, you must convince the user every single time you release something that it is worth the hassle of an install (which when targeting youth may involve the parents if an administrator is required). However, even for advanced games on the web with tech like Shockwave or Virtools, if you stick with one technology you only need to convince the user to install the plugin one time, and they automatically get access to all of your games.
whats the problem withe summerbattle cant iu just download and be happy ?
at least you can play it….