HispanicBusiness

Give a mouse a cookie when he behaves well and give a gamer an... advertisement? A new Chicago-based company is taking classic childhood stories and Psych 101 to heart by smartly monetizing positive reinforcement. BitFLIP, from Tap Me Games, is not just another 'match three and win' puzzle game. Instead, it's a well-designed, highly engaging, possibly addictive smart phone app with good visuals, a great soundtrack, and a sneaky hidden agenda.

And Hispanic Business isn't the only one taking notice: on March 12th, in their hometown, Tap Me Games won $25,000 in entrepreneurs.com" target="_blank">MillerCoors' Urban Entrepreneurs Series and Business Plan Competition.

HispanicBusiness.com chatted with Tap Me Games co-founder Josh Hernandez on making games while changing the game of advertising.

At first glance, "BitFLIP is a puzzle game, like Bejeweled, for people who really appreciate visual and auditory stimulation," explains Mr. Hernandez.

In the game, you color match at least three pieces together in order to 'win,' doing so as often as possible in a specific allotment of time. But unlike most 'match three' games, you can also double tap game pieces to flip them over, taking gameplay from a two- to three-dimensional experience. It's a fun game to play if you're looking for a colorful place to zone out during your train ride to work. And for those still traumatized by Super Mario's hauntingly repetitive anthem, BitFLIP features a solid, dynamic electro soundtrack by Robert Clouth.

Tap Me Games also forgoes the status quo in its methods of development and monetization. Rather than go the usual route of developing a game and passing production costs on to the consumer, and/or trying to round up post-production advertising funds, Tap Me Games develops games hand in hand with creative profit-driving solutions.

They do so by first acknowledging the limitations of typical in-game advertising. In a space as compact as an iPhone screen, for example, a pop-up advertisement feels particularly invasive (as compared to a larger computer screen, where it might be just be annoying.) Since most people make every effort to ignore advertisements, Tap Me Games seeks to turn advertising itself into a game. They do so via their new advertising platform, called iComplishments.

"The games we develop are always aimed at advancing the platform of advertising," says Mr. Hernandez. "But we know how users think, so we're not creating a game no one wants to play."

So rather than have advertisements periodically or randomly interrupt the game playing experience, advertisements instead appear in conjunction with 'achievement items' such as beating a level, scoring points, etc.

Mr. Hernandez explains the logic behind positive reinforcement: "Google AdSense works because you're searching for something, and if there's a relevant link you will click on it."

But mobile devices are task-oriented, and most don't provide the ability to multi-task.

He adds, "You can monetize via AdMob, but this is a bad deal for both advertisers and users. Brands are just there, and users just ignore them. Users don't care about your brand because you're not making them care."

To make them care, Mr. Hernandez wants to "put brands in context, as opposed to display."

So BitFLIP users can choose to be 'sponsored' by a brand, and doing so gives them an extra advantage within the game, thereby making "a relationship exist through social space."

For example, let's say you want to represent Red Bull – in exchange for their name and logo fluttering around the game and your Facebook news feed, you could snag those famous wings in rare e-form and flip and fly faster than your unsponsored competitors.

With Facebook's new open source 'Like' feature, it makes perfect sense that consumers should see a benefit for sponsoring and being sponsored by their favorite corporations. This symbiotic relationship might be slowly eliminating all traditional ideas of promotion - and with corporate sponsors like Disney's Alice in Wonderland and nearly 100,000 unique downloads, Tap Me Games might be quietly revolutionizing how you consume advertising.