• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 6, 2008

Creating a video game where players are motivated to seek out the next advertisement seems too good to be true. Not for Paramount Pictures. The movie studio tapped Massive and Ubisoft Entertainment to embed an advertising campaign in a video game to promote the movie "Tropic Thunder," scheduled to hit theaters on Aug. 13.

 

  The scavenger hunt in "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2," published by Ubisoft, encourages gamers to follow clues and reap rewards at the final stage. It's the first time that Massive, a Microsoft subsidiary, has built in the ability to dynamically update ads in video game content that players can act upon.

A series of nine branded "clues" posted to billboards and other items in the game lead players to the end. Those who successfully complete the game receive an invitation to join Ubisoft's VIP club and the chance to download a free digital VIP map for the game, a first-person shooter game geared toward males, ages 18 to 34.

Players who finish the scavenger hunt have two chances to win a prize. On Aug. 22, they can win an Xbox 360 Elite system as well as a one-year Xbox LIVE subscription and a collection of Ubisoft's upcoming video game releases. In the first drawing, held July 31, 25 winners received a "Tropic Thunder" gift pack: two tickets to the movie and a "Tropic Thunder" T-shirt and hat.

Gamers have likely plunked down $60 at Best Buy or Wal-Mart for "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2" to play on the Microsoft Xbox 360 console since it was released in March. Now, through a unique partnership among Paramount, Massive and Ubisoft, consumers can expand on the game and win prizes.

Jay Sampson, VP/global sales for Massive, says players look for clues, such as "You're on track. Go to X zone and look for more details." The signs in the game are branded "Topic Thunder," allowing players to identify when they are headed on the correct track.

Technically, Paramount could run another promotion in the same game sometime in the future, but that would depend on the coding and recoding in the game, says Colin Sebastian, senior research analyst with Lazard Capital Markets. "It's an attractive media for movie studios seeking 16-to-35 year olds who spend money on these games," he says. "There is a conversion of content in games. We are seeing further integration in different types of media. You just don't want to see a BMW ad inserted in a fantasy-type game that takes place in the year 1300, or some type of science fiction game that takes place in the future."

The campaign gives gamers "a game within a game," although they may have been playing it for months. "We'll replicate this because we feel it has applicability to a number of game genres and marketing initiatives," Sampson says. "You can see how this type of advertising might extend into automotive, high-tech and consumer package goods." In fact, building this type of campaign into road or street racing games makes sense, too. Sampson, who declined to go into specifics, estimates the project took about a month to complete at a cost of about $200,000.