Barclaycard's Rollercoaster Extreme tops 12.5 million downloads
300,000 players from 80 countries do 1.5 million hours
Given the success of both Waterslide Extreme and Rollercoaster Extreme, it's possible Barclaycard may never green light an ad campaign that can't be translated into a simple iPhone game again.
Both titles shadowed TV ad spots designed to promote the credit card's contactless technology, and while Waterslide Extreme gained much press attention simply for being a forerunner in the advergaming world, its successor has managed to foster downloads in the tens of million of its own.
Extreme downloads
Indeed, following the culmination of the game's six month competition – which charged players with posting one of the highest global score on the game's leaderboard – the firm has revealed that total downloads of the free app now sit at 12.5 million.
Total playtime has topped 1.5 million hours to date, with 300,000 players from 80 countries taking part in the competition.
To decide the winner, Rollercoaster Extreme's top four players battled it out in a worldwide play-off, with Lee Trow from Norway eventually coming out on top, taking home £30,000 for his efforts.
Second spot was awarded £10,000, with third and fourth winning £5,000 each.
Mobile moves
"Producing such a successful mobile App demonstrates Barclaycard’s understanding of mobile technology and how consumers interact with their phones," said senior digital and new media manager at Barclaycard, Hannah Deans.
"It is an important part of our work to become part of our customer’s mobile lives whether that be paying for goods, managing finances or playing a game."
Next up for Barclaycard is a deal with Everything Everywhere – parent company of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK – that will see Europe's first commercial contactless mobile phone payment solution launch in the UK in Q2 2011.
