“Tower Heist” Facebook Game Offers Credits for Online Scavengers

Social games work best when they grow organically out of the product they’re meant to promote, and Universal Studios has hit on a particularly appropriate vehicle to publicize its new movie “Tower Heist,” starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy. Set to open Nov. 4, the movie tells the story of a rich businessman who swindles ordinary small investors out of a fortune, Bernie Madoff-style, only to find that some of them have banded together to steal their money back, with interest.

To build buzz around the movie with the online gamer demographic, Universal and agency, The Branding Farm, have designed a Facebook game that lets players compete to earn rewards—a total of 1 million in Facebook credits—that they can actually spend on virtual goods and downloads within the social network.

“Heist It Back,” which launched on Oct. 12 and will continue until the movie’s release date or until all 1 million credits are claimed, lets players amass some of those million Facebook credits in three ways. First, they can click on “Heist” buttons hidden on Facebook pages and within ads on the network to unlock hidden “money” in the form of Facebook Credits worth two, five or 10 points that are automatically credited to their Facebook account. A counter keeps track of the total credits already claimed (281,000 at press time), and a leader board lists the top ten “Heist” hunters.

The scavenger hunt starts with the pages created for the movie characters; clues to the location of other buttons will be offered up on a predetermined schedule. Players can also earn credits by getting their friends to join in the game, or by sharing their own real-life stories of “sticking it to the man” on the “Heist It Back” page.

Since July, Facebook Credits have been the only way game players in the network can spend money to buy virtual goods in its social games. The network instituted the policy across all ecommerce platforms to minimize the security risks involved in encoding and protecting credit-card data that users would have to input to buy real or virtual items within Facebook. Users buy the credits directly from Facebook using credit cards or PayPal, and can then spend them on transactions in the social system, giving Facebook a reported 30% of revenue from the transactions with game developers.

While Facebook collects its share when the credits are spent, game developers won’t wind up paying for this promotion, since Universal has reportedly contributed $100,000 to the purchase of the credits used in the Facebook “Tower Heist” campaign. It’s reputedly the first time Facebook Credits have been used as rewards within a Facebook promotional game.

“Heist It Back” uses a credit delivery platform developed by digital goods solution developer Ifeelgoods, the only company currently licensed to offer such a service within Facebook. Players can redeem their credits for new buildings in Zynga’s Cityville social game, a kangaroo for their Farmville farms, or new weapons in Mafia Wars. They can also order movie downloads of “The Big Lebowski,” “Johnny English” or Brian De Palma’s “Scarface” to be viewed within Facebook.

“What this campaign gains is the ability to have fans engage in a game that is tied into the theme of the movie,” Scott Silverman, marketing vice president for Ifeelgoods, said. “The game is directly related to the theme of getting revenge on schemers who have contributed to the recession. It’s kind of giving back to people who show interest in the movie by giving them these free Facebook Credits.”

“This campaign was born of the vision to start a strategic integration between platform applications and platform advertising,” Branding Farm founder and creative director Hill Salomon said in a release. “The future of marketing movies involves extending the storyline of a film into real life in a way that is relevant, exciting and interactive for the audience.”

The “Heist It Back” promotion is being supported with online advertising, on-air spots and some in-theater marketing. For example, Universal is distributing cards at screenings of the movie that have QR codes leading fans back to the “Heist It Back” game.

Revenue from credits is a small but growing stream for Facebook. The network expects to take in $470 million from credits this year, up for $140 million in 2010. That compares to $3.8 billion expected to come from Facebook display advertising in 2011.

While social games have long been considered an exploding channel, Facebook recently recalibrated the way it counts the number of monthly active social game players in its network. Previously the network counted as active players those who simply visited an app; starting last week, Facebook is counting only those who log in to a game or authorize it to access their data. That has lowered the count of active players for many of the most popular games in the network. For example, Zynga’s game products went from 262 million monthly active users on Oct. 14 to 195 million on Oct. 18.