the blog

As ebooks garner more and more attention it’s no surprise that some publishers are expanding the format to offer more to their readers. Random House Group recently announced their new site Book and Beyond where you can buy “enhanced ebooks”. According to the site:

Created in collaboration with authors, these ebook extras include audio and video shorts, interviews, and games, all of which complement the books.

Nice! We are especially excited to see games mentioned. One of the things we’re eager to promote is the use of web games as positive viral marketing tools. Web games are a great way to introduce and market products, especially books. Rather than the typical, one-directional form of advertising (we show you a picture and hope it makes you want what we’re selling), this is two-directional (we’ll give you a fun game to play, that’s all, and if it piques your interest in this book or series, wonderful!). Instead of hanging a hook with a fat worm, you prepare a meal and invite them to dinner. Fun for everyone.

Games are also a wonderful reward to fans that can lead to huge follow-up sales. If someone has already read and enjoyed a book, a game can market other books they might like. Amazon’s “People who bought this also bought…” system is huge. It’s pure genius. People will always want more of a good thing, so why hide those good things from them? Create a Fantasy portal site, a Sci-Fi site, a Mystery site, etc. And on each site provide games and community tools for fans to share recommendations. Then sit back and watch your business grow and your fans get happier.

It’s our favourite time of the year, and to celebrate Halloween we created a new game for your enjoyment.  Your village is under attack by hordes of the undead, and only you, with your trusty catapult, stand to fight them.  Head on over to our games page and give it a try.

McDonald’s has taken a big stride in the web games arena with a new European marketing campaign for Happy Meals.  Instead of plastic figurines, they will offer virtual toys in upcoming Happy Meals, and they will use web games to advertise them.  Fuel Industries has done a wonderful job building the game site, titled Fairies and Dragons.  The site ties together a series of games and puzzles that revolve around eight virtual toy characters: four fairies and four dragons.  In their Happy Meals, children—and many adults, I’ll wager—will receive their virtual fairy or dragon (on a CD) and some playing cards.  They can interact with the virtual toys on their computer and, of course, play all of the wonderful games on the Fairies and Dragons site.

How can we better educate our children?  It’s a question that competes for a voice with Fast Food News headlines and breaking world events.  Meanwhile, educators compete with actual fast food and entertainment media for the attention of their students.  Ironically, if we focussed more on education around the world, there would be fewer doom-and-gloom headlines, and brainless pop news would garner less attention.  Well, perhaps not the latter, but I can dream can’t I?

We need a way to bridge the gap between learning and entertainment, and games are the perfect medium for this.  Games have a long and successful history of mixing education and fun.  Nearly all games are educational in the sense that they teach logic, strategy, puzzle-solving, and hand-eye coordination, but there is a specific set that focuses on academic subjects: educational games.  I have many fond memories of playing Oregon Trail, and later generations had games like Carmen Sandiego.  In these, you have some fun and you learn about history and geography along the way.  But how can these educational games compete with World of Warcraft or Halo?  While dying of dysentery sounds interesting, it doesn’t compete with slaying dragons, fragging enemy teams, or warping through solar systems to wage intergalactic battle. So how do educational games compete?

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