Visceral Games, An EA Partner Studio Announces Their Multi-Platform Social Media Experience: Dante’s Inferno. Works With iPhone!
If you're a gamer like I am, it's pretty much a given that you'll be familiar with or have heard of, Electronic Arts. From their multi-million dollar Need for Speed franchise, to Tiger Woods, Scrabble, Command and Conquer, FIFA, Monopoly, Tetris, MADDEN and more, it's clear EA really does play a major part in the day-to-day gaming experiences most of us buy into.
Today, Visceral Games a studio which is a part of EA, are announcing a new 'experience' across multiple platforms, which boasts both a fun social aspect that involves the iPhone. The app is called Dante's Inferno™ and centers around the aspect of sending people and or brands to 'Hell'. Based on the original poem (Dante's Inferno), the app calls upon you to 'damn' others to one of 9 preset 'circles of Hell'. These 9 circles include: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud or Treachery. Once you've decided who you'd like to damn, and why, you can then 'punish' your victim and await a reaction (if any) from onlookers who are also using the social experience. The free application will also come with a 'Hell Browser'. This extension will allow you to see a snapshot of all the activity in Hell, on a daily basis, as well as allowing you to see what essentially will be "The Demon of the Week". Basically, at that point you'll be looking at the number 1 most hated person, TV personality or brand, for that week. Sound interesting? It gets better ..
"Angry at your mom for grounding you? Send her to ‘Treachery’. Mad at your ex- for cheating? Send them to ‘Lust’."
Today we have confirmation from EA that one of the new features to the service will allow you to send someone directly to 'Hell' from your iPhone. Using the iPhone's camera you'll just be able to snap of photo your victim, choose which circle of hell you wish to throw them in, and then punish them. Now although we know the basics of how the experience works, we don't actually know the true mechanics of how this will play out on the iPhone yet, and admittedly the information given to us has been a little sketchy on that side of things. One thing we are certain of though is that Dante’s Inferno will be in the App Store shortly, as a FREE app!
As well as being available for iPhone, the same social experience has launched on Facebook - Today, and we're told you can share all your data from this, across MySpace, iGoogle and Twitter. If that wasn't enough for you, the service is also set it hit your XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and Sony PSP starting February 9th 2010.
A weird (but wonderful) and exciting concept I'm sure you'll agree. It's certainly a new one on me! - But one which I believe is sure to have great influence on how we perceive brand interaction, and personal attitude in the future. I mean, imagine sending Apple to the circle of 'Greed' for being .. well, greedy. Priceless. In fact, if the service becomes popular enough, especially talking sending 'Brands' to hell, maybe .. just maybe, some of them will start listening! Okay, maybe not. I'm guessing this will just be used for .. fun, but I tend to think too far ahead, sometimes ..
The official Dante’s Inferno site can be found here, and if you happen not to be on Facebook, you can head straight over to http://gotohell.dantesinferno.com, to get involved ..
What do you think? - Could this evolve into an global brand rating system, or am I just thinking too deeply? Weigh in for your say in the comments, below.