Do online games sell audiences on movies?

By Sarah Sluis

The marketing team behind the summer spy movie Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, created an elaborate, interactive online game to fill in viewers on the story and ultimately drive them into the theatres. But does it work?

I recently played "Episode 1" of the game on http://www.dayxexists.com to test the claims made by the marketers profiled in the New York Times article about the game.

Claim #1: "It's a supersophisticated game, but done in a way that a casual player can understand," said Marc Weinstock, Sony's marketing president.

Results: Agree. Most of the first episode is a video clip with occasional first-person point-of-views, kind of like the introduction to a video game where they set you up to play a level. The game part involves guessing when to tell the truth or bluff, a pretty simple and engaging form of choose-your-own adventure. It looked like there were more complicated ways to get involved, like registering and tracking scores, etc., but I didn't bother with that to start, being a "casual player."

Claim #2: Sony hopes to mimic the viral success of Facebook games like Mafia Wars, which is played by tens of millions of people.

Results: Mixed. While playing the game, it asked me three times it I wanted to link to my Facebook account. I declined each time. But yes, it would be easy to link this to your Facebook account. Which brings me to the next point...why didn't I?

Claim #3: Traditional marketing pushes a message over and over. If people instead pull bits of information into their lives through a game, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership..."That makes them talk about it, share it, evangelize it," said Elan Lee, a co-founder of Fourth Wall Studios, a pioneer in the games-

as-marketing field that has worked with Paramount Pictures.

Results: I wasn't ready to be an evangelist for a program I hadn't played all the way through. I also didn't want to clutter my Facebook profile with a game, and I generally despise Facebook Connect and all the random apps and games on Facebook. If you do get a link from me, the endorsement is that much more valuable because I am really picky. Maybe someone that played Farmville (or Mafia Wars) would feel differently. On the other hand, if I saw a so-called "Alpha gamer" in my friends that had linked to the game, I would think much higher of it, because I view that friend as an authority on that topic. So just because I wouldn't personally link to the game doesn't mean I wouldn't value the opinion of someone who was willing to put themselves out there.

Claim #4: Women in particular are a focus.
Results:Depending on how you define "casual gamer," I could be one of the 65 million women who play games (does online tetris count?). I liked that the game wasn't a blow-'em-up but involved strategy and figuring out when to lie and when to tell the truth. These are the games that traditionally attract female gamers, though I think the players are a mix of male and female.

And the final test? Did it make me want to see the movie?
Results:Yes. Unlike other online games, this one looked slick and high-budget. The game had a fun spy feel and reminded me that I do like movies with intrigue. I haven't really known what to think about Salt, and this helped cement my interest in checking out the movie. Online games win this round.

'Ice Age 3' breaking up 'Transformers,' and 'Asteroids' in our future

By Sarah Sluis

First, a note on yesterday's box-office returns. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs debuted with $14 million, followed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen's $10 million, then Public Enemies' $8 million. If these results hold, it looks like Transformers 2 will be unseated in its second week.

One of the producers on the Transformers franchise, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, has another game adaptation on his list: Asteroids. The 1979 Atari game (which you can play online here) has no plot and no backstory. It's just shooting asteroids before they shoot you. Since many video games with complicated backstories fail to thrive at the box office, perhaps creating a story out of such a bare-bones premise could actually work. After all, Hasbro has been licensing versions of its games like Monopoly, Battleship, and Stretch Armstrong. The property even ignited a bidding war, with four studios vying for rights to the work. Matt Lopez, who has recently penned high-profile projects like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Race to Witch Mountain, and Bedtime Stories, is in charge of the first draft.

Although the game Asteroids debuted in 1979, about five years before the Transformers television show, people played the game for years afterwards. Later-model consoles, arcades, and early computers (where I first played an Asteroids-type game) carried versions of Asteroids. People from teens to 40-somethings have probably had some direct exposure to the game, making this picture a potential "four-quadrant" film, the term marketers love. What direction will they take? The 1984 movie The Last Starfighter featured a boy good at an Asteroids-type game who is recruited by a stranger from another galaxy to save its world from invading aliens. That kind of plot is every kid's fantasy, though I'm not sure it's the direction the studio will go. In the Transformers franchise, the machines are always "real," it's just that their reality isn't universally acknowledged. You don't have to go to another world for it to become real. Universal has a great property on its hands--hopefully it will swim, not sink, in development.