Hive Media Enters Branded Social Games Market

By Joey Seiler On May 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Today Hive Media announced the debut of both its first social game, My Hollywood Studio, and the collaborative content delivery platform the game is built on. The goal of Hive, beginning with Hollywood Studio, is to offer a platform for innovative branded social games to drive the same daily engagement games like Farmville see towards brands.

Hive's efforts are aimed at both marketing and creating new revenue streams for brands and content creators with themed activities and virtual goods. For example, My Hollywood Studio is a role-playing game where players start as film students and move up in the film business as real-world Hollywood happenings impact their game play and film releases. As they advance and move in the game, their news will be shared in the Facebook news feed, pushing the brands outside of the game and into its users' social networks. Players can also create and share their own content, like scripts or movie posters. The game will launch on Facebook soon.

The Hive Media team has pretty strong connections to the entertainment industry. Working in partnership with Michael Bay’s The Institute and other content producers and owners, Hive Media plans to create daily interactions around users' favorite television shows. In turn, that content can be monetized through virtual goods, advertising, and brand partnerships.

“My Hollywood Studio is the first of many games to come from Hive Media. We are currently partnering with Michael Bay’s The Institute and working with popular cable programs and major consumer packaged goods companies to deliver their messages daily in deep, relevant and engaging ways,” said Brian Laing CEO, of Hive Media. “We believe the future of entertainment and marketing is in social games. Studios are excited to test out storylines and themes with broad audiences via our social games before committing to marketing campaigns as well as to release new content on our platform in parallel with upcoming broadcasts and premieres.”