Snapchat wants you to play with your face, not just take pictures of
it. New Selfie Lens filter games are starting to appear to users,
creating an addicting new Snapchat feature that also inspires
competition between friends and could become a powerful ad revenue
driver. Snapchat confirms this is the launch of a new, native games
feature.
Back in March, Snapchat tested a limited run of a Sponsored Kraft Mac & Cheese game where you had to catch noodles in your mouth. Then earlier this month, it offered an unsponsored Puzzle Face game where you have to slide tiles around to reconstruct an image of your face in the least amount of time. Both were first reported by Wojdylo.
Snapchat has also previously allowed some traditional Snap Ads in
Discover to be swiped up to launch a web browser with a game inside,
like the Gatorade Serena Williams tennis game, and the Under Armor Cam Newton game.
But these weren’t built by Snapchat or hosted natively in the app, and
instead were built by ad agencies and hosted on the web.
Now Snapchat is offering its most full-fledged, well-produced native
game, called Santa’s Helper. It’s embedded in one of the first Lenses
shown today. You can find it by opening the camera, holding on your face
to scan it, then choosing the Santa’s Helper Lens.
The game places your face into an elf body, JibJab-style, and then
you tilt your device back and forth to steer yourself down a ski slope
as you collect presents and avoid obstacles. You can take a photo or
video at any time and post it or share it with friends to challenge
others to beat your score.
While absurdly simple, the games are also accessible and don’t
require many instructions. They could get users coming back over and
over to improve their scores. And since most Snapchat Lenses are
temporary, there’s a sense of urgency to play before they disappear.
Some of Snapchat’s influencers have tried creating their own games in
the past, which generally see viewers try to take a screenshot at the
right time, like when parts of an image line up in a fast-moving video.
And chat apps from Asia like Line have long offered games to play while
you wait for friends to reply.
Snapchat is also tapping into people’s competitive spirit, as high
score sharing via direct message or Stories could lure your friends to
play, trash talk, and send back higher scores. This asynchronous,
challenge-style gaming is what Facebook Messenger is trying to tap into
with its own Messenger Games platform
that includes titles like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Snapchat’s games
aren’t as polished, but instead inspire the rough-edged goofiness its
known for.
Finally, Snapchat has already proven that advertisers are eager to
buy Sponsored Lenses that essentially attach their brands to your faces.
This type of promotion slips past people’s banner-blindness and general
numbness to ads, and offers virality and influencer marketing as you
send the Sponsored Lens-filtered creations to friends. And even if your
never share the output, just playing with the lenses creates a much
deeper, more interactive experience with a brand than most ads.
Demonstrating a new potential revenue stream is a big deal for Snapchat
as it heads towards a 2017 IPO.
The Serena tennis game saw an average of 217 seconds of play per user
who opened it, and that’s despite having to dig the game out of another
ad and wait for the web page to load. By building its own native games
inside its app, Snapchat may have found another way to stay fresh and
fun in the eyes of teens.
COMMENT AND SHARE......................!!!!!!!!
Share And Comment Bellow On What You Think About This Post!!!
Comments
Post a Comment
Welcome.......
What are you thinking of....!!