The Swedish-Uppsala based game developer Stillfront have signed a deal with Universal Film Studio to create a Fan Immersion Game (FIG) for the new big movie Wanted. A webbased game were fans can join and play with and against eachother, for Free. The gamesite, www.wantedthegame.com, is up and running and if becomes a success only time will tell.
I didn’t quite understand what Fan Immersion Game meant, and had some difficulties finding a good explanation. This was the best one I could find:
Fan Immersion Games (FIGs) are casual, massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) that are free to play yet also include opportunities for players to buy advantages and premium accounts using microtransactions payable via sms messages and credit cards. These games deliver high fan engagement through their story-driven design and community elements.
- Newsdesk
I remember playing similar games many many years ago. Web based role-playing games were we could battle each other. It consumed many school-computer hours for us 
. I’m sure these types of games have evolved since I played them last. And its fun to see the movie studios trying a new approach when they use the game medium to market a new big budget movie. They could just have made a another mid to big budget movie-game with a high risk of releasing a shitty game. Through this new model I think they have more space and freedom to elaborate the concept and try new creative things otherwise considered to risky.
Another aspect is the success factor. The games will have a strong connection with the movie, and create somewhat of a bridge for the audience between the two mediums. For the game to be a success, it will be much dependable on the success of the movie. This, however doesn’t have to be the outcome. We have many examples of successful movie-games dispite the failure in the movie box-office. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay from Uppsala (again) based Starbreeze is one of those cases. But with online community based games, the foundation for success is to attract a good and loyal user and fanbase. And have such a good game so players still plays long after the movie have come and gone.
I think its great with a new fresh developer, especially Swedish!, who got this deal and opportunity to work with a “new” genre in the growing game industry. New ways of doing business, and connecting it better to other entertainment areas.
Another guy who believe the video game industry, and especially the more multiplayer oriented games have to adapt to the ever changing market is David Perry. He joins the philosophy of Chris Anderson, were content and products in the digital online space basically will be Free in the future. David Perry refers to the asian game market, were the microtransaction model is the leading one. He mention the upcoming Dice (yeay, Sweden again! 
) developed Battlefield Heroes, with the Play4Free, Web advertising/Microtransaction model at its core. With a big IP name like Battlefield, it surely raise the odds for a successful launch of this business model in the west. The same can be said for the future Stillfront games. To see if the western market is ready or mature for changes.
Once again, I’m looking forward to see the result and how it all turns out. It would be nice to see the western game industry evolve.
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