Doritos and Microsoft Reveal Eight Consumer-Created Xbox Live Arcade Game Concepts Vying to Be Developed
PLANO, Texas, Nov. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Doritos tortilla chips - the bold, intense snack brand within PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division - today announced that eight quarter-finalists have been selected from more than 1,500 unique game ideas submitted to the Doritos "Unlock Xbox" program. With a higher-stakes Unlock Xbox challenge this year, consumer votes will now determine the top three semi-finalists that will revisit Microsoft for one last pitch, where two finalists will be selected. Fans can vote for their favorite gaming concepts beginning now until December 31, 2009 at www.unlockxbox.com.
"As we continue to put our fans in control of the Doritos brand, they continue to step up to our challenges and meet them with unwavering enthusiasm and creativity," said Rudy Wilson, vice president, marketing, Doritos. "Many Doritos lovers are very passionate about gaming, and we're excited to give them this unmatched level of engagement and ownership of Xbox LIVE Arcade."
"This campaign represents a true value exchange," said Mark Kroese, general manager of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Advertising Business Group. "The Xbox LIVE and Doritos communities get to become game developers and Doritos gets to engage with their core consumers when they are receptive to their messaging - while they are having fun."
The Doritos "Unlock Xbox" contest challenged gaming fans to submit original Xbox LIVE Arcade game concepts that embodied the bold and intense Doritos experience in a unique way. From vehicle simulation to shooter games, the top eight entries represent a wide variety of gaming tastes. The eight quarter-finalists, as determined by a panel of Doritos and Microsoft judges, (in alphabetical order) are:
1. "Arak Attack" by Samuel L. Gaultney of Bellevue, NE
2. "Avatar Crash Course" by Jill Robertson of Raleigh, NC
3. "Fowl Play" by Matt Kurtz of New Haven, IN
4. "Harms Way" by Justin Carpenter of Ogden, UT
5. "Have A Ball" by Keith Nelson of Spokane, WA
6. "Skies Ablaze" by BJ Chavez of Waskom, Texas
7. "The Artifact" by Jonah Masse of Dixmont, ME
8. "Thrown" by Jason Santa Maria of San Diego, Calif.
The eight quarter-finalists each will receive a prize package for their creativity, valued at more than $5,000. And, giving video game fans and Doritos chip-lovers everywhere even more reason to get in on the game, between now and December 31, 2009, visitors to www.unlockxbox.com will have a chance to instantly win great prizes everyday including a Xbox 360® Arcade and copies of Halo® 3 ODST as they log on to cast their vote among the quarter-finalists.
We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that they [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine and half years? It's a learning process. - SCEI president Kaz Hirai
It's a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they're like, "Oh my God that's so cool, I'm gonna go buy it." So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they've showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. - Epic Games president Mike Capps
We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games. - Activision CEO Bobby Kotick
