HBO has teamed with Digital Chocolate to launch a mobile game based on the popular show The Sopranos. The game, dubbed The Sopranos Bada Bing! Manager, lets players take charge of the Bada Bing! nightclub from the show, and they can “upgrade the club, hire dancers to bring in more business and even water down drinks to increase profits. To be successful, players will have to keep an eye out for “Johnny Law” and must never, ever, forget to kick up to Tony, Paulie, and Silvio”.
This is strange coming from Digital Chocolate, considering founder Trip Hawkin’s past tirades against branded mobile games, and his insistence that interconnectivity with other players is key to the success of mobile games. The press release for this game doesn’t mention any multiplayer aspects, and I’m pretty sure this is the first branded game DC has done.
UPDATE: Peter Farago, Product Marketing Director at Digital Chocolate, has responded to a few of my questions about this. He reiterated the problems Digital Chocolate has with making branded games (tight and unflexible development cycles, unrealistic licensing costs and revenue share, too much interference) but said DC has worked with brands in the past, including Atkins and NCAA. As such the Sopranos game was more of an exception to the rule rather than a change in direction. HBO apparently “gets it”, allowed DC to do what they do best, and besides which they’re all big Sopranos fans.
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