Play on Facebook/ Twitter!

Try out our free online game on Twitter!

Play with all your friends and compete to see who knows them best!

GiftTRAP on Facebook

Follow the inventor of GiftTRAP and his exploits in gaming and social media

Games Magazine Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008

Games Magazine Best Party Game 2008
GiftTRAP wins GAMES Magazine’s “Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008”

What's the idea?

Click here to find out how we’ve turned gift giving into a hilarious social experience

Discover the fun!

Click to unwrap the fun.

Puts your gifts to the test!

GiftTRAP is the hilarious new game that’s taking the gaming world by storm and putting the social back into board games.

The goal is to really get to know your friends and family.

You win by knowing your friends and choosing the right gifts, but most of all it’s just fun to play and gets you talking about things that matter.

3-8 Players, 5+
Playtime 45-75 mins
Learn in 10 mins

A sample of gifts from the GiftTRAP gift guide

1 full size game board
640 Gift Ideas
Rules
8 Organza Gift Bags containing; scoring markers, gift & choice tokens plus advanced strategy cards

Read what the experts have been buzzing about.

Love to play Trivial Pursuit, Cranium or Apples to Apples - You will love this family party game.

GiftTRAP is all the fun of Secret Santa without needing to shop or wrap.

Syndicate

Atom
RSS 2.0

What kind of Gift Giver are you?

Take our poll

Gone Boarding : Blogzone

Page 2 of 9 pages < 1 2 3 4 > Last »

In Game Advertising - Not just the domain of Video/Console Games

I’ve been thinking this for a while, but it’s so funny how word association plays on people’s minds.

The common meaning of the term “Game” used to refer to “Board Games” and over the last 20 years has changed. It’s funny I used to write “Computer Games” and now I publish “Board Games”. No longer is the prefix “Computer” needed. Today “Games” means computer game and “Board Games” need the prefix. That took a long time to change and talks to the power of association.

Most times people’s word associations are correct, eg Coffee = Hot (it’s funny to note here that despite this lawyers would have us write this on our coffee cup. God bless America)

Here’s a couple of association that I know to be wrong;

Canada = Cold (Wrong I live in Kelowna where we grow grapes and make great wine - it’s very hot here in the summer. The lake is warm. I wear no wet-suit!)
In Game Advertising = Video/Console Games (Wrong - don’t forget about board games

I’ve always thought of GiftTRAP as an advertising medium (we can feature real branded items in the game), this was very much something we designed into the game. I’ve been reading a little around the subject and it seems people’s common perception is set that they think this “In Game Advertising” refers to Video/Console Games. This just isn’t true.

I can also site other examples such a “Destination” games who I know charge for tourist based ad-placement in their board games.

Many games are walking adverts if you follow the trend for licensed content with games such as CSI Miami game, which is in effect an advert for the TV show. Games of all types are almost by definition social and conversational - this probably applies more to party games than console games which are less about conversation.

For me the difference is in an online game you can charge per click. People can make a small investment and walk away. You can easily place adverts across a number of titles and consume your ad spend based on the games people play.

With physical board games that’s not so easy. There’s also a cat and mouse game of wait and see how many games you sell before any board game becomes an advertising medium.

i’ve heard from a couple of sources that the tipping point is somewhere around the 75-100k mark.

If a game can demonstrate this kind of sales then you can easily charge for placing content in the game.

Conversely prior to any games being sold their is a reluctance to any kind of association - even if the game is free.

I can personally attest to that and know that now it’s actually quite easy to get people’s agreement to have their IP featured in the game as we approach the 50k unit mark.

I look forward to experiencing the upside of possibilities as we approach the 100k mark in future print runs and editions of the game.

One of the most innovative suggestions for GiftTRAP was for actually give it away simply by funding the game totally through in game advertising and produce placement. This seems like a fun option, but we’d have to be careful not to mess with the dynamics of the game. For now it’s back to work selling games for cash!

Tell-a-Friend • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks •

The Unofficial meta list of "The Bucket List" lists

I love it when a plan comes together. I’d been fixating for a while around why “Games” and I mean “Board Games” have slipped out of public consciousness in the eyes of the media. By that I mean take any credible “Arts & Culture” site - it could be a major new paper or a magazine, well they all review “Books”, “Movies” & “Music” but games are nowhere to be seen. Sometimes “Video/Console Games” sneak to the picture but almost never “Board Games”.

And along comes “The Bucket List”. The parallels to the Bucket List and GiftTRAP are very interesting (to me at least). The concept of “The Gift List” has captured the hearts of the people if movie and DVD revenues are to be believed. The Bucket List has touched popular culture and it’s been reviewed by just about everyone who can review a movie.

It think this is the angle I might take to try to bring “Games” back into the mainstream, out from the cold.

To begin I thought I’d just to some research and build a few lists. I’ve tried to create the following lists

Reviews of The Bucket ListBlog Posts about the concept of “Bucket Listing"Actual “Bucket Lists” Bucket List ApplicationsPodcasts on BucketListsWhere to BuyRelated Products
Have you got a bucket list story? Get in touch. If you are a movie reviewer and would like to review a copy of GiftTRAP then get in touch.

Am I’m missing your article/review - Send it along to nick [at] gift trap [dot] com. I’ll try to keep updating this list

As I read and digest all the commentary on the subject of Bucket Lists I’ll post more thoughts in separate posts.

Reviews of The Bucket List
Blog Posts about the concept of “Bucket Listing"

This is the interesting stuff. They mostly relate to the idea than the movie and people’s different reactions to the idea. Many of these posts include examples of items for your Bucket List
Actual “Bucket Lists”
Bucket List Applications
- http://bucketlists.wetpaint.com/
- http://www.squidoo.com/whats_on_your_bucket_list
- http://www.43things.com
Podcasts on BucketLists
http://archives.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/01/20080123_b_main.asp

Where to buy

http://www.amazon.com/Bucket-List-Jack-Nicholson/dp/B000YAF4MA
http://www.play.com/DVD/Blu-ray/4-/4985993/The-Bucket-List/Product.html
http://www.booksamillion.com/product/K085391139881?id=4187419819352

Related Products

GiftTRAP (more to follow)

Tell-a-Friend • (0) Comments • (2) Trackbacks •

OK, there's is a "licensed" game that is actually a good game

I’ve been complaining lately about the disservice the board game industry has done to itself by publishing a constant stream of here today gone tomorrow board games based on the latest Fad of a TV show or Movie.

I’ve mentioned these games are typically play once at best and I said there’s wasn’t a single game that breaks that rule (well probably).

Pillars of the Earth based on the book by Ken Follett is a notable exception to this rule.

I thought I’d better confess this omission. Actually I’d forgotten all about it.

Now it also happens to be a “Designer Game”. It’s designed by Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler, who are both respected Designers.

So my new rule is "There is no high replay value ‘licensed’ games unless it happens to be a Designer game"

Tell-a-Friend • (0) Comments • (1) Trackbacks •

I'm obviously in "List Mode" : Gratitude Lists vs Bucket Lists

Thought of the day.

Does it really all come down to lists?

A “Bucket List” for the long term to make sure you don’t forget about the stuff you really want to achieve.

And a “Gratitude List” for the short term to remind you where you are, who you are and all that surrounds you and all that you have already achieved.

It seems like a happy balance. Be happy in the moment - Happy to look back and happy to look forward. Happy to be.

Tell-a-Friend • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks •

5 reasons to change the name of your Facebook App

Yes, you can change the name. I guess there is a risk people will wonder what the apps is if you change the name too much.

I must confess, I’ve changed the name of our GiftTRAP app several times just to see if I can improve visibility in the Apps Directory. Do people really search the apps directory apart from people in the Facebook apps business. Probably not!

Our current name is GiftTRAP’s “Can you guess my ‘Bucket List’ game"

There are many reasons, but mainly were late to market. People are jaded on Facebook in so many ways. Here’s a few of the issues;

Too Many invites
Too Many Apps (30k)
Apps usage has hit a plateau
Too many copy cat apps
Too many apps that do nothing of value

The name “giftTRAP” is well known in online board game community, but that’s a small sub segment of the global population of party game, so first I think we need to try and hook people into using our app and then teach them a little more about a real world cardboard board game. If you already have a crowd on Facebook (with an existing app) then it’s easy to get users for your new app, but building from zero is simply a hard slog.

Simply put we missed the whole early adoption Facebook wave. I wrote our app myself using Ruby on Rails (I had to learn it) and I’m no coding superstar, but I can get by. I had to switch from rFacebook to Facebooker (which delayed us further) and we’d began with a standalone all.

What’s interesting is that depite all the issues I still think a Facebook is proably better than having a standalone app. Whilst people are jaded on Facebook to more apps, they are even more jaded to registering for yet another service. It’s the better of all evils. With our original standalone app we found a lot of people would register with one of their email addresses and then send themselves a gift to another of their email addresses. I guess we are all so SPAM paranoid. What happened to the trust in this world? At least that doesn’t happen with a Facebook app.

Our app been through several iterations to figure how to translate an award winning game into an online game. Perhaps we’re not there yet, but to my mind our apps is unique, it actually does something and we have clusters of users who get it and play it a lot. I think we’ve got some cool stuff in the analytics especially when you play amongst a group of friends and compete to see who knows your mutual friends best.

Being a “Virtual Gifting” app is both a plus and a minus. On the positive side I’ve estimated that half a billion virtual gifts have been send across all the Social Networking platforms, ie people have heard of the concept. The downside is it’s easy to get lost in the noise. People who have a virtual gifting app of choice aren’t really looking for a replacement and perhaps were making it harder by doing something more. Our is actually a game and not just the idea of sending a virtual gift.

So i’ve always wanted to find a way to differentiate ourselves. Secret Santa is one way - it’s a quick connection. GiftTRAP is the “Santa” of board games. It’s funny but there are probably 20 or so Secret Santa app. Again were slightly different here. Our game is about giving virtual gifts and not about organizing the postage of physical items. That said it’s a bait and switch game - we’ve seen people opt to play GiftTRAP instead of Secret Santa - it’s just so much greener. Who needs some $5 gag gift to put out in the trash anyway.

So along comes The Bucket List. It’s an amazing coincidence but nearly all the things featured in the movie are in the game plus a whole lot more besides.

I’ve estimated 20 million people have seen The Bucket List. There are many people that get the idea of Secret Santa, but The Bucket List is so much more current and probably a better connection - as the focus is really about thinking about what you want in life and that’s really the focus of GiftTRAP.

It’s actually very hard to get your app out into the right social group (whoever they maybe). I must confess to not really feeling that I’m part of the FB generation, but I’m trying to learn, I guess it’s like trying to teach my old dad how to use a computer. This old dog hasn’t given up yet. I keep tweaking and fiddling and will continue to do so and it’s a lot of fun learning what works and what doesn’t

If I ever write a book on “The Story behind giftTRAP” it will be an interesting read. I’ll need a better title.

So back to the renaming, why?

Too many “Gift Apps” - it’s impossible to standout when there are 500+ apps themed around gifts. Amazingly there’s even an app to make Gift Apps which kind of explains point 1
GiftTRAP and “Bucket Lists” are a good fit. It kind of overcomes some of the materialism thoughts that GiftTRAP can communicate to those who haven’t played the board game
OK, so the Bucket List is a hot topic (although I’m late again)
It’s all about the Application Search Engine. Both the name and the 250 character description matter here. The sequence of words matter and it gives different weighting to the title vs the description. I’m shooting blind here as to my knowledge there’s no public data on what people search for on Facebook. So I don’t know what is key. There’s no public data on daily visits to specific groups. So I’ve tried to make my app name and my 250 character description work as hard as possible

Will it be the right thing? Time will tell. Perhaps there’s a few more tweaks along the way.

It’s all about timing and aiming to peak in time for The Holidays. There are many things that need to align to make this happen, but this seemed like a smart timely move to make.

I’ve also written some new copy for use on online sites to describe GiftTRAP in the context of Secret Santa and The Bucket List.

I’ll also be working on a few more posts around the Bucket List theme. I’m amazed just how many posting there are on the web about The Bucket List.

The good news is there’s 8000+ monthly active users on other “Bucket List” app ( I guess I could call it the official one). And there’s a similar number for the Movie page of the same name.

GiftTRAP is now on the first page for “Secret Santa” “Gift Exchange” and “Bucket List”

With 500 Gift Apps on Facebook I really struggle to get how this can be the case. Who are these people? Who does they perpetuate to use these apps? I’d love to know, to learn the bit I’m missing.

There are over 70 gift apps with 10,000 Monthly Active Users or more. What are these apps. There’s such specialization it’s amazing. There’s even a “Rotherham” gifts app which is small soccer team in northern England (no offense - I’m from Southport originally who’s club even smaller). I must confess to not having examined every single gift-app but I guess the economics must stack up.

What’s frustrating, but I can’t see a route through it is non of these apps have any reason to be in the “Gift Exchange” business for any other reason that ad revenue. We may have a legitimate product, but that’s kind of irrelevant. If you can’t beat it join them.

Tell-a-Friend • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks •

Page 2 of 9 pages < 1 2 3 4 > Last »

Play on Facebook/ Twitter!

Games Magazine Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008

What's the idea?

Discover the fun!

Puts your gifts to the test!

Syndicate

What kind of Gift Giver are you?

Gone Boarding : Blogzone

In Game Advertising - Not just the domain of Video/Console Games

The Unofficial meta list of "The Bucket List" lists

Reviews of The Bucket List

Blog Posts about the concept of “Bucket Listing"

Actual “Bucket Lists”

Bucket List Applications

Podcasts on BucketLists

Where to buy

Related Products

OK, there's is a "licensed" game that is actually a good game

I'm obviously in "List Mode" : Gratitude Lists vs Bucket Lists

5 reasons to change the name of your Facebook App