Barclaycard's iPhone promotional game Waterslide Extreme may be the most internationally successful promotional game in the App Store.
The free iPhone ad game Waterslide Extreme, developed by Dare and FISHLABS for Barclaycard, appeared on 16 July 2009 as part of Barclaycard's iconic Waterslide TV campaign. In keeping with the TV execution, the game allows the user to ride a series of waterslides through urban environments.
After just one week, the simple but extremely addictive game conquered the top of the download charts in 19 countries and recorded over two million downloads. Today - after six months - Waterslide Extreme may be the most internationally successful ad game in the App Store with a total of ten million downloads. Almost half of all downloads are from the USA, followed by the United Kingdom (#2), France (#3), Canada (#4), and Germany (#5).
Through the holiday season, Waterslide Extreme has been downloaded over one million times and entered the top #10 of the US download charts again. Today, more than 40,000 iPhone and iPod touch users are still downloading Waterslide Extreme per day. Measured by the total of 10 million downloads with an average playing time of 2.5 minutes and four sessions per player this corresponds to an average brand engagement of 100 million minutes. Thanks to the interactivity of ad games like Waterslide Extreme, the brand awareness factor is exceptionally high.
‘Barclaycard's Waterslide Extreme demonstrates the enormous coverage and high attention mobile ad games on the iPhone can generate,’ comments Michael Schade,
CEO of FISHLABS Entertainment GmbH. ‘And this is just the beginning. With Android and OVI from Nokia, there will be more channels in the future for emotionally bonding an audience of millions with high quality mobile applications. For global brands, mobile apps should be an integral part of the marketing mix of print, TV, and online advertising.’
About FISHLABS
Since 2004, FISHLABS is specialized in 3D mobile games development of rich racing and action titles on iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Linux Mobile, BREW and J2ME (Java). Headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, FISHLABS employs a team of 30 full-time artists, designers, programmers and marketing experts who have been responsible for developing and self-publishing titles like Galaxy on Fire™, DEEP™, Blades & Magic™, Rally Master Pro™, Snowboard Hero™ and Gladiator (Paramount license), as well as work for hire productions of well-known brands like V-Rally® 3D, Star Wars™ – Imperial Ace 3D and Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam™.
FISHLABS is also known for extremely successful ad games on iPhone for clients like Volkswagen and Barclaycard, having dominated the App Store download charts in almost every country for weeks. Furthermore, the superior quality of FISHLABS’ productions is demonstrated by numerous awards, such as Best Mobile Game 2008 (Rally Master Pro™) and third-best mobile game 2008 (Snowboard Hero™) according to Pocket Gamer Analysis. FISHLABS is also the best mobile game developer of 2008 according to the independent MobileGamesDB.