Discovery Channel Attempts To Ride Social Gaming Waves With Deadliest Catch on Facebook

Facebook is becoming an increasingly attractive arena for brands to engage consumers and some are looking to go beyond just offering quizzes through their Facebook fan pages. Discovery Communications is looking to get into the action with a new social game based on Deadliest Catch, Discovery Channel's highest-rated show that will be produced by branded game producer Hive Media. What other brands will see jump on the boat? Deadliest Catch is a documentary reality series that puts viewers in the midst of crab fishing action, showing an up close and personal look crews of crab fishing boats and their captains on the Bering Sea. The game is set to debut November and will launch after the launch of the Deadliest Catch console game which will launch this fall. A mobile game is also in the works according to the press release. "Deadliest Catch has always been one of our favorite Discovery Channel shows," said Brian Laing, CEO, Hive Media. "The perils of the Bering Sea and the camaraderie shared by the ship captains and crews makes a great platform for building a social game." Deadliest Catch will leverage Hive Media's 'collaborative content delivery platform' that will allow players to experience the deadly and lucrative profession of crab fishermen. Players will be put in the shoes of captains of their own crab boats and make decisions out in the Bergin Sea to balance risk and profits, with the goal of climbing to the top of the crab-count leaderboard. The deal is a good fit for both companies as Hive Media's core focus is on providing consumers story-driven branded interactive experiences and securing IP. "Integrating the series into a branded social game is a great way to give Deadliest Catch fans an ongoing interactive experience," said Elizabeth Bakacs, Vice President of Licensing for Discovery Channel. "We look forward to working with Hive Media to bring the real-world adventures of Deadliest Catch to social gaming." Discovery Communications, with over 100 worldwide networks like Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and more under its belt, is in a prime position to leverage their IP for deeper interaction and increase revenues with social games and microtransactions. We recently reported MTV Networks entering the social gaming space by acquiring social game developer Social Express. Perhaps Discovery Communication will do the same although they lack the online gaming experience Viacom has through its existing properties such as addictinggames.com.

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Discovery Channel Attempts To Ride Social Gaming Waves With Deadliest Catch on Facebook

Azam Khan

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