• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, August 1, 2012

I am not far enough into the ad agency sim Campaign: The Game for iOS to go thumbs up or thumbs down yet. But what does it matter? You know you want to try it. And at $1.99 on iPhone I am sure some tinny synth music will be emanating from more than a few office cubes this morning as some of you try the Don Draper sim.

You are running a small agency, managing both creative and planning on ever-larger accounts as both your teams and your clients gain confidence in your ability. The graphics have a disarming 8-bit cuteness to them at first, but the sophistication of the game’s structure and presentation begins to grow on you after a few campaigns. You make high-level decisions and then set the teams in motion, with each agency sim giving off icons and sounds that may be hard to track.

Stick with it through a few turns of succeeding at hitting easy 10,000 teen-reach goals with a TV ad or two and you will start getting into the interesting bits. Unlike real agency life for most of you, in this game you actually get to choose from a menu of accounts to serve with varying degrees of difficulty. You make basic decisions about the style of creative and where to weight the media buys (TV, radio, print, direct mail). Over time you have to respond to requests for revisions or suggestions from the creative team. Client briefings have to be handled, and of course the stray disaster must be managed. Ultimately you may get a chance to impress the critics at the “Cammes Festival” with your work.

At once mild satire and sim, the game will be familiar enough to professionals to be playable, with content that is occasionally rich enough to keep them interested. The adjective-laden profiles of the candidates for your team are fun. And even though you may have far exceeded your target of hitting 10,000 families with calm beach scenes and gentle dolphin imagery, your campaign still gets sniffed at as “cliche.”   

Ain’t it the truth?

The game was developed by Brazilian game makers Insolita Studios and Sao Paolo-based creative producer Thomas Egan.

And I am still waiting for the media critic sim.

You are the columnist. Can you navigate the sleeping cats, dropped pens and dodgy broadband connection in your home office to get the e-newsletter out by deadline each morning? Coffee running low. Prose slips when caffeine runs out. Use your Klout points to get some coffee. Ooh, Jimmy Olson, there were an awful lot of typos in that blog this morning? Five points off. Irate PR rep who resents your calling her client’s company a “troubled startup,” calling to tell you that you got their cryptic business model all wrong. It’s not an ad “network,” it’s a “platform!” VentureBeat managed to get it right -- why can’t you?

Hang up or correct article online?