Save the Arcades - Zapataur
With home consoles more advanced and popular than ever, video game arcades have become more like museums than places of recreation. For many arcades, "game over" came years ago. And for the few that are still alive, nostalgic thirty-somethings can keep them on life support for only so long.
Stride showed the gaming community its philanthropic side with its initiative to Save the Arcades. Four long-running, struggling arcades were spotlighted on savethearcades.com with a call to gamers to donate their skills instead of quarters by playing Zapataur, a ridiculously tongue-in-cheek homage to 80's shooter games featuring four mythical manbeasts who band together to save the world from a lightning rod-hurling Minotaur. Players then donated their Zapataur points to one of the four arcades and the one that garnered the most points won $25,000.
The response was immediate. Within days the Save the Arcades crusade was celebrated by IGN, Reuters and Wired Magazine. In the end, Austin Texas, Arcade UFO took home the $25,000 prize, racking up nearly one billion points in only two months time. Round two of Save the Arcades is in the works.
ROLE // Creative Direction, Concept Development, Art Direction, Design & Artwork, Animation, Flash Implementation
With home consoles more advanced and popular than ever, video game arcades have become more like museums than places of recreation. For many arcades, "game over" came years ago. And for the few that are still alive, nostalgic thirty-somethings can keep them on life support for only so long.
Stride showed the gaming community its philanthropic side with its initiative to Save the Arcades. Four long-running, struggling arcades were spotlighted on savethearcades.com with a call to gamers to donate their skills instead of quarters by playing Zapataur, a ridiculously tongue-in-cheek homage to 80's shooter games featuring four mythical manbeasts who band together to save the world from a lightning rod-hurling Minotaur. Players then donated their Zapataur points to one of the four arcades and the one that garnered the most points won $25,000.
The response was immediate. Within days the Save the Arcades crusade was celebrated by IGN, Reuters and Wired Magazine. In the end, Austin Texas, Arcade UFO took home the $25,000 prize, racking up nearly one billion points in only two months time. Round two of Save the Arcades is in the works.
ROLE // Creative Direction, Concept Development, Art Direction, Design & Artwork, Animation, Flash Implementation