Q&A: Ben Fisher, TechPad Agency

• By Liam Eagle, November 06, 2008

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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- You may have seen it set up at HostingCon, or come across it somewhere else, but ServerMania has been hanging around in the hosting business for a while. A kind of demonstration of a marketing or promotional concept, the board game was designed by TechPad Agency (www.techpadagency.com), a marketing and creative services company, and takes the hosting business as its inspiration.

Last month, Ben Fisher, one of the founders of TechPad Agency reported that the company was working on the development of a similarly themed video game for the iPhone. The idea has evolved somewhat in the time since, to focus on the broader theme of "Internet entrepreneurship." It will be made available for $2.99 in December.

ServerMania makes an appearance at HostingCon 2008

Fisher says the company is collaborating with successful iPhone developer Avatar, and has signed to work with PR and marketing agency Reverb Communications, a company that has been involved in promotions for the super-popular games Rock Band and Guitar Hero, as well as "countless successful iPhone titles."

The deal is a big one for a first time publisher, he says.

In an email interview with the WHIR, Fisher talks about the development of iNetMania, as well as the idea behind ServerMania and the effectiveness of the execution.

WHIR: Let's start with ServerMania. I've read the website and seen the game, and my understanding is that ServerMania is a piece of marketing material intended to promote TechPad's marketing and promotional services?

Ben Fisher: Yes, we started ServerMania as a way to promote ourselves and show off a new method for hosting companies to accomplish creative marketing. The rules of the game were built from the ground up and tested on adults and children for playability and more importantly for fun. What we discovered along the way is that the game has more potential than only as a limited edition board game. ServerMania was created by Bryant Fernandez, Derek Vaughan, Dan White and myself of TechPad Agency.

This new project you're developing, it's a hosting-themed video game for the iPhone? Can you tell me a bit more about it? How it's going to be distributed and developed?

BF: Well the project is not just hosting themed, iNetMania is themed as "The New Game of Internet Entrepreneurship". The game is all about the quirky ups (Spikes) and downs (Slumps) of running an Internet business while gaining traffic to your business, which in turn, translates into money.

We are working with a company called Avantar to develop the application. Avantar is responsible for creating blockbuster applications on the iPhone such as Showtimes and YellowPages. Their passion and commitment to the iPhone platform is one of the reasons why we chose them as a development partner.

In addition, we have also signed with Reverb Inc. as our PR/Marketing agency. Reverb is responsible for Guitar Hero I and II as well as currently working with Rock Band 2, Cro Mag Rally, Enigmo among other top 10 iPhone titles. We are honored to be working with so many professionals in the video game space.

We plan to release the game on the iPhone platform in December of 2008. It will retail for $2.99.

My understanding is that this was originally going to be "ServerMania" the video game, but now it's going to be something a little more for webmasters?

BF: Yes, ServerMania was the initial idea, after we decided to put funding into the development of a real video game we felt the game is suited for a wider audience, i.e. anyone with a website or an entrepreneurial dream of making money online. Where else can you make millions on the go? TechPad Agency has been involved in the webmaster/web hosting industry since 1994, what better way to honor this industry than to make a fun game about it.

You said you had received some funding to help you develop the game. Tell us about that deal if you can. And beyond that, is there a business model attached to the game? I imagine it'll sell for a small fee on the App Store. How much? Do you intend for it to make the cost of developing back that way?

BF: We are good friends with George [Roberts] and Frank [Spaulding] over at Interjuncture. At HostingCon we talked to quite a few people about our intentions to develop ServerMania into an iPhone game. Well, Interjuncture had recently sold HostingCon and Frank and George just happen to be gamers so it just kind of made sense. A few beers later and we had a deal. Just kidding.

We plan to release the game on the iPhone platform in December of 2008. It will retail for $2.99.

Frank Spaulding had this to say "We have worked with TechPad Agency for quite a few years and saw this as an opportunity to work with a solid team of people who know how to get things done, so the idea of bringing a game like iNetMania to life on the iPhone was one, we as Internet entrepreneurs, we could not pass up"

Who do you see as being the audience for the game? Do web hosts want to play games about web hosting?

BF: Well, what we discovered in the year that ServerMania was in the hands of web hosts was that it brought a lot of fun to the workplace and quite a few even brought the game home. Web Hosting in itself can be technical and boring but being able to laugh and have a friendly competition around a board game that has tongue-in-cheek snippets, has been received very well.

The main audience for iNetMania for the iPhone is anyone who has ever dreamed of making a living on the Internet. Anyone who has ever, or ever will setup a website for fun or profit is who this game is designed for. iNetMania is about building a successful company and at the end of a game you never know who will win. There is a strategy. For example if you do not pay for marketing, that can change the game very quickly.

You mentioned this was the "first video game created for the webmaster/hosting industry." Do you make a distinction between what you're building here and things like WestHost's "host wars" or Affinity's "server mechanic" or others we've seen in the past?

BF: The major distinction between those games and iNetMania is that those games were created as flash/web based advertorials. Meaning the sole reason to interact with them was for an advertising purpose. iNetMania is an application/game developed for the iPhone and will be available for a mainstream audience.

Now, do not get me wrong they were well done and very easy to play.

iNetMania for the iPhone is a digitally distributed game created as a video game that takes advantage of all the features of the platform. The object is to have fun, lots of fun and have tons of replayability.

Tags:  marketing and promotions  TechPad Agency 

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