• by Josh Lovison , April 27, 2007

In the popular online game "World of Warcraft," players spend a great deal of time and energy trying to acquire really good gear, called "epics." These items become a sort of status symbol among players, indicating the skill, time, and effort put into obtaining them. In a number of cases, the most coveted items don't actually have a discernable impact on game content beyond being highly exclusive status symbols.

It's high time for offline epics. By epics, I mean skill- or effort-derived items of an exclusive nature. If I score more than 10,000 points in a Nike-branded basketball game, I want to be able to buy special Nike shoes. I want players who stopped at 4,000 points to look at my feet with envy. If I save an old lady's purse in a Coke game, I want to be able to order online six-packs of Coke in gold-colored cans as opposed to the traditional red. When people are over at my house and look in my fridge for a drink, I want them to know I have "mad skills" at saving old ladies' purses. These promotions would offer some significant branding power, directly transforming product into status.

There are some key factors to successfully introducing "epics," but mostly it's pretty simple:

Make them difficult -- but not too difficult -- to obtain. Ideally it should take a full 48 hours worth of effort to get an object. That's more time than the average Joe would put in, but little enough that a dedicated gamer could achieve it in one to two weeks.

Make the game tied into fun. If the process of getting the items involves monotony on the level of banging one's head into a wall, the "status" is only that of a degree of masochism.

Make the reward worthy. Pistachio green and fuchsia Nikes are not "epic." The items need to be something any consumer would desire from the product line. The unique factors could be as small as a special color (like a black iPod), to unique models.

I could see this concept driving sales from fast food to automobiles. People like showing off, and how better than with real-life epics?