Chicago tech startup Central Street Games (www.CentralStreetGames.com) launched earlier this year and is already starting to get its share of the $23 billion dollar sales-promotion market. Central Street Games creates online mobile games that entice players to buy a company's products. The startup is developing dozens of games for major brands and capitalizing on the growing influence of smartphones and mobile communications.
Financed and headed by Andy McKenna, former Illinois GOP Party chairman and former gubernatorial and U.S. senatorial candidate, Central Street Games unveiled it's first game "Minelab: Epic Find," in September. The game was created for Minelab, Inc. (www.minelab.com). The Downers Grove based company is the world leader in providing technology for humanitarian demining and consumer metal detecting.
The metal detecting, adventure game is available for free on the Apple marketplace. Successful players can win discounts on Minelab products and even an ounce of gold. "Minelab: Epic Find" allows players to experience the adventure of a hunt as they travel the world searching for precious finds. To succeed they need to learn how to best use Minelab technology in simulated terrains.
"Hundreds of millions of people play mobile games everyday. They can be powerful marketing tools because they deliver experience which builds consumer understanding," says Andy McKenna, president of Central Street Games.
Industry studies forecast that smartphones will be the majority of mobile phones in the United State's by the end of 2011. Smartphone users spend nearly an hour each day, on average, interacting with mobile apps and websites, and four of the top 10 downloaded apps are games, according to Nielsen.
"The market has proven that casual mobile games are this decade's new frontier. If social networking was about communicating, mobile gaming is about engagement," says Mike Rhodes, Central Street Games technology development director. "Marketers are paying attention, and they should be, to this space."
"A mobile game was a perfect fit to our marketing approach. It addresses our biggest challenges which are to introduce consumers to the adventure of metal detecting and to demonstrate to those interested why Minelab has the experience and technology to be considered their first choice when selecting a detector," says Gary Schafer general mange and vice president of Minelab Americas. "Minelab: Epic Find puts a taste of the metal detecting experience right in the hand of our target market."
Source: PR News Wire
