This Week in Global Crime: ASM teams with Zynga
Bribe, Steal, and Cheat your way to Global Soccer Domination!
If not for ASM, you might have never heard of Zynga or Mafia Wars.
Totally not true, of course. The reigning don of social gaming companies, Zynga boasts 7 of the top 10 social games and 240 million players every day. That’s better than twice the viewership the Super Bowl gets. Every. Single. Day.
So when Zynga called ASM on our untraceable disposable encrypted cell phone, we answered. Their challenge to us: plug ASM’s brand of digital storytelling into the most viral entertainment platform ever (social gaming) to engage Mafia Wars’ 18 million monthly users while helping Zynga conserve its engineering resources. The result: a series of MW challenge missions that take players on adventures through the underside of the world’s hotspots.
The first ASM-designed mission Zynga rolled out: London. The caper: Gather a crew of master thieves, ingratiate your crew with the UK’s most feared gang, kidnap a member of the royal family, and use the resulting chaos to snatch one of the crown jewels and whisk it off to a billionaire buyer in India.
The next mission, live this week: a mission pegged a certain global sporting event taking place in South Africa. The job this time: Blackmail the head of the mineworkers union, then… well, you’ll have to find out for yourselves. Go to http://mafiawars.com and in the “travel” tab, select South Africa, and dive in.
Look for more challenge missions in the months to come.
