The co -founder and CEO of Moviepass, Stacy Spikes, wants to do for Hollywood what fantastic games and bets have for sports.
“Sport has really learned to create a commitment,” Spikes told Business Insider. “I think we can learn something about them for the film industry.”
The film ticket subscription company is launching this week the beta version of a fantastic box office game called Mogul. In this game, moviegoers can try to predict how future films will occur in theaters.
As in fantastic sports, players can build leagues – or, in the case of mogul, movie studios – with teams that include actors, directors and films. Players have a budget in digital parts to build a studio and score points based on the film's box office performance.
Spikes hopes that the free game will stimulate public engagement with daily and weekly tournaments, defining a list and playing seasonally, or thanks to head-to-head clashes with other users.
If the game becomes popular, Moviepass can try to develop with elements of play that reflect the competition or other markets where players can earn real money, said Spikes. He underlined services like Fanduel and Draftings as potential models.
But, for the moment, he compared the magnate to the “monopoly for the entertainment industry”.
Moviepass wanted the game to be a “waist jumping forward” in technology
Spikes said Mogul's idea came out of Filmpass staff calls on Friday, when employees talk about what they think that the top five films will be at the box office every weekend. He underlined the recent films in small groups like “Minecraft” which crushed the box office projections and caught them in Hollywood.
MoviePass has seen an opportunity for box office predictions in a game to make the application “more sticky for customers” and engage them more with social features.
“We always talked about what we thought that the weekend Gross would be, and that was just part of our culture,” said Spikes. “It was the Genesis, or the beginning of us who move in this direction.”
Mogul players have studios, which work similar to the way the leagues are for fantastic sports. Users can select the films, actors and directors they want in their team by paying them with a motto in game called Mogul Coin. Each player obtains 1 million magnate pieces to start.
The points are then attributed according to the net that the film does at the box office. So, if the film “Wicked” is duplicating its production budget at the box office, the film value, its director and actors like Cynthia Erivo should double in the magnate, said Spike as an example. An actor or a director could increase even more if he wins an Oscar.
The game is built on Suis Bockchain technology, which, according to Spikes, gives Moviepass options to reward players or expand the platform.
“It is unique in that if you reward people, that you want to do digital collectibles or other things, to build it on the blockchain facilitates it,” he said.
As MoviePass did when he launched film tickets, Spikes wanted to do something that was a “leap forward” with technology.
“I don't think you could have built this game very well 10 years ago,” said Spikes. “It wouldn't have worked if you didn't have all these other technologies that you can use now.”
Mogul has a waiting list of more than 400,000 people
More than 400,000 people have signed up for the waiting list to play the magnate, said Spikes.
The company does not plan to monetize it through ads or integrated purchases for the moment. He mainly seeks to bring users to play the game and give comments on his mechanics.
You do not need to be a Moviepass subscriber to play, but the company is thinking about the means to reward players who are subscribed or who will see films in theaters with bonuses.
This is one of the points of the game, after all.
“The more you engage in this way, the more likely it is, you will actually go to the theater,” said Spikes.
