A Kung Fu Family Feud

Fuel Industries was challenged by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment to create a viral experience to promote the launch of the American Dad Season One DVD Collection. While both Family Guy and American Dad were created by Seth MacFarlane, American Dad, being much newer, did not have as large a fan base. Our challenge was to develop an experience that would appeal to fans of both series, and to create a halo effect around American Dad that would lend some of the Family Guy magic to DVD sales. They key was to develop something that was guaranteed to "go viral" within the fan base.
 
The game had to appeal to hardcore fans, but also had to be funny enough to appeal to causal fans and fit into pop culture. Beyond vomiting, Godzilla references and decapitation, it needed that extra "you've got to be kidding me" surprise that would get people talking-- which, courtesy of Capcom USA, became the boss-level Ryu, from the classic arcade game "Street Fighter." Not only do you battle Ryu, you do so against a background taken directly from "Street Fighter II."
 
The challenge with any of these projects is to reconcile our ideas with the time and budget resources we have to work with. We will be adding more characters to keep people coming back. We had 1,000,000 hits in the first two weeks, averaging more than 11 minutes each, which works out to over twenty years of interaction time so far.
-- Mike Burns, CEO and chief creative officer, Fuel Industries

Far from just a bit of play time for fans of the shows (I am a Family Guy fan come lately), it serves as a great introduction / teaser for both shows, their characters and the bizarre humor they share. This game sells you on the shows. I have not followed American Dad, but after this game I am going to check it out. This is made easier by the simple link to buy the DVDs of both shows (Season 1 for American Dad, Volume 3 for Family Guy).

The opening is immediately fun, the controls are simple (although it was a while before I mastered the flaming fart attack-- but that might just be me) and it rewards you with great little raunchy bits the longer you play, like the girl from American Dad defiantly flashing Peter from Family Guy in defeat.

The only complaint about this experience might come from our CEO who could be concerned about my agency's productivity taking a hit on the day we found this game.
-- David Jones, SVP, executive creative director, emerging platforms, FCB

The first thing I thought when I got to the site was, Yay, it's an American Dad / Family Guy fighting game! The idea is great, the graphics and sounds are clever-- though the gameplay itself is hard. In addition, I was frustrated that I couldn't pause the game during a fight, and that there was no help screen once I entered the arcade mode. With a better user interface, this game would be much more addictive.

Besides the gameplay problems, I thought that the game's callouts to buy the DVDs could be more prominent. I wasn't really encouraged to click on the "Buy the DVD" link. Also, a game like this is going to be passed around a lot, and the only "Send to a Friend" option I noticed was when I looked at the High Scores. I should have been able to send the link to a friend each time I was done playing a match. 
 
All in all, the creative was wonderful. The game captures the spirit of both shows and is truly fun. But as a marketing tool, I think the calls to action could use a bit more thought.
-- Christa Imbriale, sr. project manager, Grey Interactive