Seattle-based PressOK Entertainment launched PlacePlay, calling it a “location-enablement platform” that connects mobile game developers, players and local advertisers. The platform’s flagship toolset, PlacePlay Tournaments, enables developers to add local tournaments to their games to drive player engagement and increase revenue through targeted, “location-enhanced” advertising.
PlacePlay combines location data with social and game data to serve the most relevant ads possible, resulting in high CTRs and eCPMs. According to the information collected during the three-month private beta, PlacePlay Tournaments could be integrated in as little as one day, tournament participants play 1.6 times more than gamers who don’t, and gross eCPMs via integrated monetization hover between $10 and $20. Sounds impressive, don’t you think?
Heavy gamers “benefit” from daily city, state, and country tournaments; weekly venue tournaments; and push notifications, alerting them when their score has been beaten, a tournament has ended, or new tournaments start. Developers get to use virtual currency (if they need it), while also being able to customize UI and make money thanks to the integrated monetization options.
In a nutshell, I think of PressOK’s offering as location-based OpenFeint with ad network running on top. Sounds kinda complicated but who knows – it may work for all the parties involved. We’ll see…