After announcing a unique iPad rental program for inflight entertainment in February, Australian airline Jetstar is expanding the content available on those iPads. Gameloft is bringing twelve of its gaming titles for iOS specifically to Jetstar’s rental units. Of the twelve, five will be available starting in December: Real Football, Shrek Kart, Avatar, UNO, and N.O.V.A.: Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance. The other seven games — GT Racing: Motor Academy, Brain Challenge, Blokus, Ironman 2, Let’s Golf 2, The Settlers, and Asphalt 5 — are slated for availability in the first quarter of 2012.
President and Founder of Gameloft, Michel Guillemot stated in a press release that “Gameloft’s philosophy is to make video games accessible to the widest audience possible by constantly seeking new avenues to reach and interact with consumers.” This is an excellent point to make, and a very good business strategy overall.
Developers might want to follow in Gameloft’s footsteps and potentially widen their target audience. The vast majority of developers aim to sell apps and games directly to the consumer, but what if there was a middleman? In this case, Gameloft is selling their products to Jetstar, and Jetstar is then selling their own products to customers. Gameloft is able to reach people it wouldn’t have ordinarily reached due to this link. Those same people enjoying Gameloft’s titles inflight may very well rush home to buy them for their own iOS devices. It’s all a very clever marketing tactic, and one that developers should take notice of.
Should you happen to be flying with Jetstar soon, their iPad rentals are available to travelers flying longer than 2 hours for A$10 to A$15 — cheap, but rewarding.