Miniclip – Pennies from Arthur

Quickly Calculate The Value Of 34 million Cents!

Miniclip.com announced yesterday the launch of a new game based on "Arthur and the Invisibles", the highly anticipated animation movie scheduled for release in February in the UK. The new game was developed and placed by digital agency Grapevine and is called "Loot Out". Arthur fans can help the animated hero collect treasure in order to save the land of the invisibles.

"We know kids are eagerly awaiting the wild adventures of ten-year-old Arthur and we wanted to give them an entertaining and interactive game to play in the run up to the release at the beginning of February," said Jamie Schwartz, Marketing Director at Momentum Pictures, the film's UK distributor.

Miniclip has recently released other original games for other popular movies including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead mans Chest, Superman Returns, and Chicken Little. Miniclip is the world's largest online gaming site with an estimated 34 million unique online visitors each month. The games at Miniclip are popular because they are fun, free and easy to play.

34 Million Cents = $340,000

Any site that can even claim to have 34 million unique users per month is going to generate a lot of attention. More significantly, any site that is constantly utilized by the likes of Disney and Warner Brothers displays a high degree of credibility.  

I am having some trouble evaluating the value of such sites, and am torn as to whether or not this is 2.0 stuff. The site looks like the same old massive advertising scheme we have seen for many years. However, doesn't there have to be a place for certain types of advertisements? I described in some past posts a hierarchy of search engine priority being attached to search criteria, and I am wondering if some sites like this are not a good thing.

The games are really fun, and people on the web do get bored and want simple, easy entertainment. The online gaming community is often overlooked in interactive media news, but the gaming community is one of the most popular arenas on the web. This site does not make use of wild banner ads, and for a site of this type I must say it is pretty clean and less obnoxious than its competitors. I should also note that I did not get past the first round in "Loot Out", but I hope to report later on my much improved progress. The site is headed to web 2.0, as this type site can only go so far so fast, but the real web 2.05 versions would be in a virtual world.

Photo Credit: Momentum Pictures