What if a magazine publisher had devised Angry Birds? Time Inc’s UK publisher IPC Media is creating a new division to develop casual games.
But this isn’t strictly a content play. The division, IPC Play, will create “advergames” – marketing game-candy designed as digital adjuncts to the space sold to magazine advertisers.
Making the games will be Mousebreaker, the minigame developer IPC acquired back in 2008, and Feelgood Games, the female-focused casual games brand IPC launched in 2011.
To promote the division itself, IPC is inviting media agency staff themselves to play its own game – Planner, Buyer, Fire – to win an office pool table and other prizes.
IPC has previously built game campaigns for Land Rover, Barbour, Disney, Pepsi Max and P&G, but is now formally offering it as part of its advertising line-up.