It's a trend that is here to stay: video games getting turned into movies and movies making their way into the mobile gaming scene.
This rising trend is not limited to the United States, as this has been seen with the box office success of Angry Birds internationally and the success of Warcraft in China.
As games and the entertainment space continue to merge, Regal Cinemas is now branching out to step into the mobile gaming industry through a partnership with the mobile game developer Storm8.
Founded in 2009 by several Facebook engineers, Storm8 has achieved more than 1 billion downloads and has launched at least 45 mobile games in primarily three different categories: casual arcade, simulation-style games and social casino.
And now the developer has announced the release of a new simulation game called Dream City: Metropolis, which allows players to build their ideal city — complete with a Regal movie theater.
"The fundamental thing about simulation games is it really enables people to build and — what we in the game industry call invest and express — invest in the game board and express their personal personalities through the game itself," Terence Fung, chief strategy officer at Storm8 told Tech Times.
Instead of taking a more traditional and mathematical approach where players have to figure out how to create the most efficient city to "win" by not going bankrupt, Storm8 created Dream City: Metropolis with an emphasis on creativity and imagination — perfect for city-building fans and casual gamers.
"For us, we saw there was a larger mass market opportunity to build a city-building game that really allows the players to have the freedom to imagine and build and ultimately grow the city of their dreams," Fung said.
To further make this game different from other city-building games, the team at Storm8 focused on customization, a friendly art style with upgraded animations with specific details (like a character lounging at the top of a luxury complex), a diverse set of characters within the game and a meta story line to help guide players along.
It's the story line of railroad tycoon Old Man Chesterfield needing help to make the city great again and the cast of characters that specialize in different industries that allows the player to have context and foundation. The more they progress in the game, the more freedom they have to go crazy with their city plans such as customizing neighborhoods, building landmarks like the Empire State Building, trading and getting resources to help the city grow.
And this may include making sure the townspeople have a movie theater to go to for all their entertainment needs.
"It's hard for anyone to imagine — at least for me where I grew up — to go to my downtown without the movie theater," Fung said. "We really wanted to give players a sense of real world attachment in Dream City, and knew that incorporating branded establishments was a great way to make the game come alive."
And the move to mobile seems natural from an entertainment industry perspective for Regal.
"Mobile gaming has increasingly become a primary platform for consuming content. At Regal, we always seek innovative ways to extend brand engagement with our audience," said Chris Sylvia, vice president of media at Regal Entertainment Group. "Storm8's network approach and deep understanding of mainstream mobile audiences makes this partnership a natural first entry for Regal into mobile gaming and helps us extend our reach. We're excited to see Dream City bring the magic of Regal Cinemas to its players."
Fung revealed that after approaching Regal for the partnership, it quickly understood how important it is to reach a mobile audience, especially since the movies and gaming industries will continue to intersect.
"If you think about the total revenue of the global box office, it grossed about 30 billion in 2015, and if you look at the total games market, it's nearly three times larger at 110 billion. And if you look at just the global mobile games market alone, that's expected to be larger than the global box office with over 40 billion by the end of 2106," Fung said.
"So what does this all mean? It means that games are no longer an afterthought for the movie business," he added. "Games can be both a material revenue driver and a marketing driver for the movie industry and this is particularly the case given the globalization of the video game and movie industries. You're going to see the movie houses trying to figure out what is their mobile strategy and that can be anything from mobile branded games to features within mobile games."
The partnership is also smart because the way we consume content will continue to change and include multiple ways, with kids as young as 3 years old using tablets for entertainment.
"Movie houses will continue to exist for a long time — that experience of going with family and friends and eating popcorn and sitting in that dark experience is something that is a special moment. That being said, I think there will be a lot more entertainment consumed outside the movie theater in lots of different ways given the power of the mobile device," Fung said.
Dream City's partnership with Regal is just one of the deals Storm8 has brewing, with more collaborations expected to be announced in an event in the future.
Dream City: Metropolis is available to download for iOS and Android.
