# Branded games built around your world > Custom games that live on your owned channels and earn real, repeatable engagement — not a throwaway campaign. Custom games built around your brand world — deep, repeatable engagement that lives on your own channels and earns real time-on-brand. Ideal when you want a flagship experience, not a throwaway. ## What is a branded game? A branded game is a fully custom game built around your brand world — its characters, tone, mechanics and rewards are unmistakably yours, not a template with a logo dropped on top. It lives on channels you own (your site, your app, your social profiles) and its job is to earn real, repeatable time-on-brand: people come back to play, and every session is spent inside your world rather than someone else's ad slot. A branded game is not an advergame. An advergame is a short, campaign-length push built for reach and virality around a single moment — a launch, a promo, a season — and it's designed to be retired when the campaign ends. A branded game is the opposite: a lasting, flagship experience you keep and grow, measured in return visits and dwell time over months, not impressions over a few weeks. If you need a burst of attention tied to one campaign, that's an advergame; if you want an owned destination audiences return to, that's a branded game. Choose a branded game when the brand itself is worth spending time in and you want a property you control end to end — no platform renting your audience back to you, no expiry date. It's the right call when you're building long-term affinity, activating a fan base, or giving a product world somewhere to live. It's also distinct from gamification: gamification rewards actions inside a product you already have, whereas a branded game is the experience itself — a destination people open to play, not a layer on top of something else. If your goal is a one-off spike of reach rather than a returning audience, start with an advergame and graduate to a branded game once there's a world worth keeping. - Owned-channel engagement - Flagship, not throwaway - Full-cycle: design → build → launch ## Where a branded game pays off - **Flagship brand experience** — A signature game that becomes the centrepiece of your brand's presence — the thing people share, return to and associate with you. Built to headline a site or campaign for years, not to be swapped out next quarter. - **Always-on brand arcade** — A growing collection of small games under one branded hub, so there's always a fresh reason to come back. New titles drop over time, keeping the destination alive between big campaigns instead of going quiet. - **Owned-channel loyalty** — Gameplay wired to logins, rewards and your CRM so playing earns real perks — turning a game into a loyalty engine that lives on channels you control, not a platform that rents your audience back to you. - **Product-world tie-in** — A game set inside the world of a product, film, show or franchise that lets fans step into it and play. Deepens affinity with the people who already care and gives the property somewhere interactive to live. - **Fan & community activation** — A game your most engaged audience actually wants to play — with leaderboards, seasons and shareable moments that give a community a reason to keep showing up and pulling others in. ## Three ways to ship a branded game ### Web games Mobile-ready browser builds that load instantly with no install and no app-store friction — a player taps a link and they're in. Best when you want the widest possible reach and a game that lives right on your site or in a campaign page. Think a playable hero on your homepage that runs the same on a phone as on a laptop. ### Mobile games Native and hybrid apps for iOS and Android, built from one core so you're not paying twice for the same game. Best when you want a lasting home-screen presence, push notifications and deeper sessions than a browser tab invites. A brand might ship a flagship title to the app stores and grow it with seasonal content over time. ### Social games In-feed and messenger-native games that spread where your audience already is, turning a share into a new player without anyone leaving the platform. Best for reach and word-of-mouth when the goal is to ride existing social behaviour. Think a playable that unlocks a result worth posting, pulling friends in through the feed. ## See branded games at work Real branded games we've shipped — some for clients and some our own titles. - **Prathamesh Kumar** — Dark Fortress — Vampire Survivors-style base defense (Survival · 2D Pixel · Android) - **Maziminds** — True Destination — pixel-art puzzle adventure (Puzzle · Pixel art · Mobile) - **Maziminds** — Fast & Foolish — chaotic casual racing (Racing · Casual · 3D) ## FAQ ### What are some famous examples of branded games? Chipotle's 'The Scarecrow' paired an animated film with a mobile game about sustainable food and became a viral hit. America's Army, released by the U.S. Army, is one of the longest-running branded games ever. KFC's 'I Love You, Colonel Sanders!' turned the brand into a full dating-sim game, and Magnum's 'Pleasure Hunt' sent players chasing an ice cream across real websites. More recently, brands like Nike (Nikeland) and Gucci (Gucci Town) built persistent branded worlds inside Roblox — each an owned space fans return to, not a one-off ad. ### How is a branded game different from an advergame? A branded game is a lasting, owned-channel experience built around your world and kept for the long term; an advergame is a short campaign built for a single burst of reach and then retired. Different goals, different lifespans — one is a destination you grow, the other is a moment you ride. ### How long does it take to build? Most branded games ship in roughly 8–14 weeks depending on scope — a focused single-mechanic web game is quicker, a multi-level mobile title with progression and backend runs longer. We lock a realistic timeline at the design stage and usually launch a strong first version, then grow it with new content. ### What platforms can you build for? Web, iOS, Android and hybrid — one codebase where it makes sense to share it, native where performance or platform features count. We recommend the mix based on where your audience already is and how you want them to find and return to the game. ### How much does a branded game cost? Branded games start from $8,000. Where a project lands above that is driven mostly by scope — the depth of gameplay, how much custom art and animation your world needs, the number of platforms, and whether it wires into logins, rewards or your CRM. A single-mechanic web game sits near the entry point; a flagship multi-level title with a backend is larger. We scope to a fixed price after a short discovery call. ### Do we own the game and its IP once it's built? Yes. The game, its source, the art we create for your world and all player data belong to you, and we hand over everything needed to run or extend it. We can stay on for ongoing content and tuning, but you're never locked in. ### Can it integrate with our marketing channels, CRM or loyalty program? Yes — logins, in-game events and rewards can wire into your CRM, CDP, loyalty platform or analytics stack via API, so playing feeds the systems you already run. That's what turns a branded game from a nice experience into an owned-channel loyalty engine. ### What do you need from us to get started? Your brand world — assets, tone, characters or product references — plus the goal you want the game to serve and where it will live. If we're integrating logins or rewards, API access or an engineering contact on your side; if there's existing IP, whatever guidelines govern how it can be used. ### Can you use our existing brand characters and IP? Yes — building the game around characters, mascots and worlds you already own is often the strongest version of a branded game, because fans recognise it instantly. We work within your brand guidelines and can extend the world with new game-native characters and mechanics where it helps the play. ### How do you keep people coming back after launch? The same way any good game does — progression, seasons, leaderboards, new levels and timely rewards, tuned against real play data. Because it lives on your channels, we can add content and events over time so the destination stays alive between campaigns rather than going quiet. ### How do you measure success? We agree KPIs up front — plays, dwell time, return visits, shares and any conversions or sign-ups the game drives — and instrument the build to track them. Because a branded game is a lasting property, the numbers that matter most are retention and repeat play, not a one-time impression count.