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Although, technically speaking, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley never left our small screens thanks to 60 years of I Love Lucy, in TV reruns, the gang is back for their first interactive adventure in Retro World, writes John Gaudiosi.
I Love Lucy, from maker Entertainment Games, enters the videogame space in early March as an episodic series available on Facebook and RetroWorld.com with mobile and tablet versions to follow.
The black-and-white game will blend footage from one of the most popular TV comedies of all time with new character interaction, exploration, puzzles and mini-games.
The first instalment expands on the classic ‘Job Switching’ episode in which the girls, Lucy Ricardo (Ball) and Ethel Mertz (Vance), go to work while their husbands Ricky (Ricardo) and Fred (Frawley) stay home and take care of the house. In the game, the players control Lucy and Ricky.
“The experience is uniquely designed to feel like you’re playing in an actual I Love Lucy episode,” said Gene Mauro, president of Entertainment Games.
“In some scenes, players will control Lucy as she struggles comically to stay employed alongside Ethel in the chocolate factory; in other scenes, players become Ricky as he coaches Fred and labours to learn the ropes of basic housekeeping.”
Entertainment Games has worked closely with producers Desilu, Too, LLC and CBS Consumer Products Inc, which control rights to products from the classic TV show that first aired from 1951-1957, on the game, turning the programme’s comedy into casual games designed to appeal to the boomer generation.
According to Bruce Bronn, owner of Unforgettable Enterprises Inc, which represents Desilu/CBS, the show remains popular today with nearly one million Facebook likes and mainstream consumer awareness.
“Recent research data obtained by CBS shows Lucy still enjoys an 88 per cent awareness factor with 96 per cent favourable appeal among the key female 18-54 age group and a 92 per cent awareness with 95 per cent favourable appeal for females 25-54,” said Bruce.
Since launching its initial game in November 2011, the company has attracted over 60,000 players to its games like the ’60s era spy game Owl Files and the ’60s era comedy Kat the Brat. Mauro said Retro World gamers are currently attracting mostly women with over 50 per cent in the 40-plus age group.
The game makers have been using Facebook to test core gameplay in preparation for the I Love Lucy launch, which will mark the initial marketing push for the casual gaming company.
“They have an original idea, and think that iconic branded entertainment will have a lot of appeal, especially among the older Facebook users who remember brands like I Love Lucy,” said Michael Pachter, videogame analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities. “The unique nature of Entertainment Games’ focus on nostalgia could build them a sizeable audience.”
New I Love Lucy game episodes will be released every few months. Once they finish the first episode, players gain access to a Lucille Ball avatar that they can use to explore the rest of the game world. Ball joins fellow Hollywood icons like Dick Clark, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and John Belushi who already have avatars in the virtual game world.
Entertainment Games plans to launch an additional four game franchises this year based on classic CBS TV shows from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Pachter believes that if Entertainment Games can get other big retro licenses like CBS’ The Brady Bunch it can build a pretty interesting business.
For now, I Love Lucy fans will have more than just re-runs on Netflix or TVLand to enjoy.
