Commentary

How does today’s consumer embrace brand entertainment?

An audience born in a world of high-end video game experiences at home has driven a demand for engagement and gamification when they are out.

Image provided by iStock.

April 25, 2022 by Kevin Williams

While the world still reels from the impact of the global health crisis, other momentous developments seem to fly past. But it is important to take time and take stock of where the gaming and entertainment industry has come from, and where it is going. In two far reaching observations, we first look at the anniversary of the videogame market, and then at how the next generation of entertainment looks to embrace high brands.

2022 marked the 50th anniversary of Pong — the phenomenally successful first mainstream video amusement release, and a game that would cement video amusement and start the wheels turning.

While Atari Pong was not the first video amusement piece, it was the first to achieve full mainstream, if not global, adoption and opened the way for the amusement trade to take video arcade games seriously, as an addition to their mechanical game machine and pinball business.

The progression from the black-and-white pixel on screen has accelerated in vibrancy and quality at a breakneck speed, to the point now that the graphical fidelity and interactive physics rendered are close to representing real life.

Gaming defines its offering

Once the journey began, the gaming industry had to define its offering, creating compelling characters and icons, which it has done successfully, to the point that many recognize Nintendo's game mascot Mario over Disney's animation icon Mickey Mouse.

Many have been quick to write off the amusement industry, first after the arcade game crash of 1979, but it rebounded. Then again, in 1983, with the great video game crash, arcade was once again written off — but it endured.

Even now, during the height of the global lockdown, the media wrote off out-of-home entertainment as being unable to recover, only now for the media to suffer mass amnesia in reporting the explosion in social entertainment and investment in entertainment venues containing the very machines they said were dead.

The new consumer

Which brings us to the new consumer. The levels of sophistication engendered by an audience who have been born in a world of high-end video game experiences at home has driven a new demand for engagement and gamification when they are out.

OOH is an industry that seems to have been ahead of the curve, if not maximizing the bankability. It is the first entertainment industry to have adopted e-payment and the first to have embraced tournament play through competition.

It is the first entertainment sector to employ collectables and customizable game elements unique to the player. All while creating gaming environments that took from the digital world and represented them in physical environments for social engagement.

But it is also important to understand that in maturing, we also see a consolidation, if not combining, of approaches and technologies.

The 'retailtainment' evolution

Also marking its 50th anniversary is Walt Disney World — the evolution of the theme park into the template of the themed entertainment resort. So it is no surprise to see interactive digital entertainment blending with the next generation of immersive entertainment venues — as personified by the successful rollout of the Universal Studios Super Nintendo World expansion, literally taking the elements of Nintendo videogaming and blending them into an interactive attraction environment.

How the next 50 years will shape the OOH experience is still an undiscovered country. With talk of the metaverse on many people's lips, some envisage a metamorphosis of the digital world with physical experiences — but we have already seen that achieved with the creation of physical attractions based on movie experiences, best illustrated with "Star Tours" in 1989.

It is also the technology from this early period that has reached maturity — that of virtual reality, but also far more. Now we see the full adoption of immersive entertainment, using all the latest technologies, described by some as cross reality, to create what some see as "virtual world simulators."

But with the resurgence for social entertainment demand, from an audience re-emerging, the market seems about to be hit by a new evolution in entertainment that will cast asunder the traditional doctrine, as major entertainment corporations vie for control of a lucrative aspect of a wider cross platform entertainment landscape.

Branding entertainment

Most recently, we have seen the likes of the development of the Florida-based "Peppa Pig Theme Park." Only a stone's throw away from the Legoland Florida resort, the Hasbro media and toy property has been recreated towards offering a physical resort location, especially developed to support the modern audience for the popular pig.

While the brand has seen sporadic deployment in the themed entertainment landscape, this will be the first wholly dedicated theme park to represent the brand, and a lot depends on a successful interpretation.

Hasbro has also ventured into the landscape of LBE development, most recently opening in London "Monopoly Lifesized" — a real-world board game experience, based on the brand.

The toy and licensing industries have equally embraced these physical representations of brands — and this has become an essential in the deployment for entertainment facilities.

An example of the brand and IP crossover into the entertainment space was seen with the news of the launch of the "Nikeland Experience." Part of the flagship Nike NYC, House of Innovation retail store on New York City's Fifth Avenue, the space offers an entertainment imagining with branded virtual world entertainment such as "Nikeland Roblox" as well as deploying AR experiences with "Pachinko Obby Ball" using scanned Snapcode, in addition to a projected interactive floor game experience as the culmination of the "retailtainment" offering.

Along with this venue, the company also worked on creating the "Rtfkt" brand, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection of digital-only "virtual sneakers" that generated some $3 million within a matter of minutes of going live.

Also, following the opening of Ferrari Land in Dubai in 2010, the company invested in wider deployment of its sportscar brand in the interactive medium. Ferrari recently announced the launch of the "Ferrari Experience" — a concept designed with partners to offer a media-based midway attraction around immersive simulators, as well as including a central e-sports hub. Ferrari is banking on this experience, along with other themed attractions, planned for launch in the coming months.

These live entertainment sites have become a new component of the immersive experience scene in venue entertainment, and London is also soon to play host to the new "Tomb Raider: The Live Experience" — based on the video game and movie character.

In addition to the "Doctor Who: Experience" based on the popular television sci-fi series and property — a physical recreation of the brand allowing the audience to pay to be immersed within.

It is the evolution of the interactive game media in its OOH colors that now is under the microscope. Social entertainment and location-based entertainment are facets of the fundamental amusement experience.

The sophistication engendered by an audience who have been born in a world of high-end video game experiences at home has driven a demand for engagement and gamification when they are out.

(Editor's note: Extracts from this blog are from recent coverage in The Stinger Report, published by Spider Entertainment and its director, Kevin Williams, the leading interactive out-of-home entertainment news service covering the immersive frontier and beyond.)

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About Kevin Williams

Along with advisory positions with other entrants into the market he is founder and publisher of the Stinger Report, “a-must-read” e-zine for those working or investing in the amusement, attractions and entertainment industry. He is a prolific writer and provides regular news columns for main trade publications. He also travels the globe as a keynote speaker, moderator and panelist at numerous industry conferences and events. Author of “The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities,” the only book on this aspect of the market, with the second edition scheduled for a 2023 release.

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