‘Homefront: The Revolution’ Goes Interactive With Map Promotion

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Deep Silver’s first-person shooter Homefront: The Revolution has been building up major steam over the last few months with a live Twitch stream that included a number of online personalities and a lucrative campaign that delved more into the war story revolving around the game, as senior manager of marketing and communications Will Powers previously discussed with us.

Now a new promotion has appeared where gamers can actually win prizes as they unlock more secrets behind the game’s storyline, thanks to the introduction of an interactive map.

By visiting the official Homefront map page, fans can explore across a map of Philadelphia, unlocking new parts of the city and gaining intel on the villainous Korean army that has overtaken the territory. Through a series of mini-games, users can not only unlock more information about the game, but earn additional entries into the sweepstakes, which features prizes from Astro Gaming, Loot Crate, Hyperkin, Razer and Sumo Lounge, as well as copies of the game.

Deep Silver prepared a video that thoroughly explains the promotion, which allows users to earn rewards as they search through the city, including badges and promotions—on top of the prizes that they can win. It’s a unique—and fun—way to get them more drawn into this visceral game world, prompting them to dig a little deeper.

Those who pre-order the game through the site (either via GameStop or EB Games) will also gain access to a special underground subway zone with even more mini-games and videos to partake in.

Homefront: The Revolution arrives for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on May 17.

 

‘Minecraft’ And Mario Are Mashing Up On Wii U

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We’ve seen Nintendo’s Mario character cross over with characters before, like Sonic the Hedgehog in Sega’s bi-annual Olympic Games releases. However, his latest crossover could be his most popular to date.

Nintendo has announced that it has joined forces with Mojang to bring the Mario universe to the Wii U version of Minecraft. A new Super Mario Mash-Up Pack will be introduced on May 17 as a free update to the game, allowing users to access a number of new skins and textures, along with a pre-made Super Mario world and themed music.

In addition, a special retail version of the Minecraft: Wii U Edition will be made available on June 17 for $29.99, with all of the Super Mario content included on the disc.

“Both the Super Mario franchise and Minecraft embrace the magic of exploration and discovery,” said Steve Singer, vice president of publisher and developer relations for Nintendo. “Players will have a great time adventuring and creating in this free game update that embraces the unique and memorable elements of both franchises.”

This is huge news for both companies. Mario, of course, has become a popular icon for Nintendo for well over 30 years, selling millions of copies of games across the board, including Wii U releases like Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8. Meanwhile, Mojang has sold more than 70 million copies of Minecraft worldwide, including top-sellers on consoles that continue to rank in the top ten.

It’s a huge business move that brings two massive universes together into one collective product—and that business potential could possibly continue with versions of the game for the New Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo’s much-anticipated NX console, set to debut worldwide in March 2017. These have not been confirmed yet, but considering the series’ best-selling nature, a deal shouldn’t be far off.

In the meantime, Minecraft: Wii U Edition is available now.

‘Ready Player One’ Author Ernest Cline Explains Why VR Is The Future

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The paperback version of Ernest Cline’s second novel, Armada, is now available. After exploring virtual reality gaming in Ready Player One, Cline adds long-range drone combat using a virtual reality game to the mix in his second page-turning bestseller.

Hollywood is adapting both of these Random House books into big screen adventures. Steven Spielberg is directing Ready Player One, which will star Simon Pegg, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, and Tye Sheridan., and Universal Pictures is adapting Armada for a film adaptation, based on a script written by Cline.

Ready Player One has become required reading at Oculus VR, literally. Cline has seen his fictional universes blend with reality after the consumer launches of Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive (with Sony’s PlayStation VR slotted for an October debut). Here, Cline explains to [a]listdaily why he’s all-in for virtual reality in this exclusive interview.

There are some analysts that believe augmented reality, or mixed reality as Microsoft and Magic Leap call it, will ultimately become the de facto technology in the coming years. You’ve been gung-ho about VR with your books. What are your thoughts about the future of AR?

It’s amazing. I’ve seen the Magic Leap demos and the way that it can turn your bedroom, your office space, or a room in your house devoted to using these devices that paint virtual objects over real surfaces that are there. I don’t know if that’s ever going to be as appealing as escaping into another world entirely. I think augmented reality is a turnoff to some people. Like anybody wearing Google Glass being at a party and all this information is popping up over people’s heads about each of them. That would be offensive to the people who knew it was happening, even if everybody was doing it. I don’t know if that would add to human relationships, or detract from them, or create a barrier between people if they knew that this person was seeing other things or ignoring them completely. It’s almost like somebody glancing down at their phone while they’re talking to you is a faux pas now. AR is like having your phone super imposed over everybody at all times.

Do you see any uses for AR in the future?

For applications of gaming it’s interesting and for teleconferencing too. You could sit around a table of empty chairs and see the people projected into those chairs and they would see the same thing on their end, but I don’t know how much more believable that would be and more useful that would be than just putting on goggles that shut out the real world entirely. They seem to be almost like apples and oranges to me. From what I’ve seen, virtual reality and shutting out the real world entirely in service of the whole other reality that’s created inside is more compelling and more immersive, but also has this impulse to not want to be around other people while you’re doing it because you know you look silly. It’s hard to look cool wearing VR goggles because nobody sees what you see. Whereas with augmented reality, everybody who had the glasses could see what you could see.

What are your thoughts about Magic Leap?

With Magic Leap you can look at your finger and a Tinkerbell fairy will land on your fingertip and you almost feel it there even though you know it’s not really there. It looks at you and you can move it around and see it from every angle. It adds to the light that’s already coming into your eye so it looks a little more realistic, but I feel like virtual reality goggles are going to catch up with that. And when you put on the virtual reality goggles it will look like you’re seeing reality, as opposed to seeing something drawn by a computer. It will be interesting to see. I think eventually you’ll have goggles that will do both. You’ll have see-through goggles that can either be AR or VR. Maybe it will be like those sunglasses that flip up and you’ll have augmented reality and virtual reality in the same device.

Some analysts believe VR will be like your home theater experience for big movie experiences and AR will be like your tablet for more day-to-day interactions.

What’s crazy about that Leap Motion controller, which is a flat infrared camera that they use epoxy to stick on the front of the Oculus Rift, is that there are already demos where you can use that as a pass-through camera and wave your hand in a certain way and it changes into a black and white camera. And that way you can see your desk and your office environment and reach out and take a drink of water and then put the glass back down and then turn virtual reality back on. I’m pretty sure within a few years Oculus will have cameras built into the front of it like that.

The Vive does it right now with its “chaperone” feature, which turns on the camera when you get close to a real-world object.

Yeah. They showed me the Vive when I was at Google when I was there and it showed the walls and everything as a wireframe outline so it didn’t completely disrupt the virtual surroundings, but it kept you from running into things. I think that will be a quick addition to the Oculus.

What are your thoughts on how quickly reality is catching up to the fiction from your books Ready Player One and Armada?

It’s startling. When you are playing a virtual reality simulation for a while and then you take off those goggles, it’s startling to look around and realize you’re in this room and not in that space that I was just in. Even if you know if the graphics in there are not photorealistic yet—it’s still a little jarring—but when you look around inside this other place it feels to some degree like you’re really there. There are people already developing haptic suits and haptic feedback gloves where you can kind of close your hand around a doorknob or a flight stick in the virtual world and it will feel like it’s really there.

We’re in the infant stages of that now. It’s like black and white televisions compared to the TVs that we have now, is how quickly this technology is going to evolve. Now we have all these big corporations (like Facebook, Google, Samsung, Microsoft) and everybody around the world focused on the problem of virtual reality and making it as engaging and as real as possible. It’s an exciting time and interesting time to be alive.

National Geographic Preps Instagram And VR Video Series

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With over 49 million followers, National Geographic has found quite a following on Instagram. It’s managed to become the top media brand as a result, and the No. 13 brand overall for the social media site. So it should come as no surprise that it wants to now increase that exposure with original programming.

As reported by AdWeek, the company confirmed through its NewFronts presentation this morning that it will launch 10 digital series this year, including its first one for Instagram, as well as regular digital channels, and virtual reality.

This expands on the company’s growing social footprint, following its pairing with 21st Century Fox last November. The newly announced move will help it expand even greater than it did last year, where it managed to garner 1.6 billion engagements, according to Claudia Malley, chief marketing and brand officer for National Geographic Partners.

In regard to expanding its reach on Instagram with original programming, Malley noted, “We get super-excited by the potential of social and the ability it gives us to connect with consumers and bring them along for the journey. … Now that Instagram is tracking views, it’s crazy. We have 15-second video clips getting three million views.”

The Instagram series is called MoviNG Pictures, following photographers around the world as they capture experiences for fans to be thrilled by. “You’ll travel the world with our photographers and have an intimate experience with them,” said Malley. It will make its debut this August during the National Parks’ centennial.

Other series are also in the works, via digital short-form, which will focus on science, travel and adventure, including a series called Before Mars, which will air on National Geographic Channel in November; Wild_Life, a series focusing on wildlife filmmaker Bertie Gregory as he seeks out coastal rain wolves in the Pacific Northwest; Get Out: A Guide To Adventure, which follows adventure experts as they explore the outdoors; and NG Gold, a series that focuses on “incredible moments” from nature, including a shark in an underwater volcano.

Virtual reality will eventually play a part with the company’s programming as well with NG VR Studios. “There’s a lot of folks launching VR, but what makes National Geographic VR different is that this is going to be in the hands of folks in the field,” noted Malley. “So we’ll be able to put our global community literally in the field with our explorers and scientists and storytellers. They’ll be on expedition with us: in King Tut’s tomb, or underwater, or looking into a volcano.”

So far, the company’s Facebook VR videos have gained a huge audience with over 30 million views.

Look for more details on National Geographic’s slate, as well as official launch details on its many series, in the months ahead.

Tunisia’s First Game Developer Is Giving Away Real Cows

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In the mobile game, Bagra (Arabic for “cow”), players must keep a herd of virtual cows safe from UFOs, while attempting to steal cattle from other players using flying saucers. While most free-to-play games offer prizes of in-game currency or extra play time, Tunisian game developer Digital Mania held an unusual contest recently, awarding the highest score-earner with a real cow.

The winners, an unnamed couple from the region, are now the proud owners of Pamela, a black and white bovine who has been living at the game studio for the last two weeks. Since Bagra is only available in the African country of Tunisia, exporting the large, living prize isn’t a problem. The winners had the choice of claiming the live cow, donating it to charity or having it butchered. Luckily for Pamela, the couple opted for the live option and she was driven to her new home in Beja on the back of a pick-up truck. The couple who won her is obviously skilled in the fine art of protecting and stealing cows, so Pamela should be safe with them.

Bagra is a new game to hit the mobile market, with an official launch trailer posted on YouTube just two weeks ago. According to Google Play, the app has been downloaded between 5,000 and 10,000 times.

Digital Mania is Tunisia’s first video game studio, founded in 2011 by Walid Sultan Midani, who dreams of becoming an industry giant. “I don’t just want to survive,” he told BBC in a 2014 interview. “I want us to come up with the next Angry Birds [or] Farmville.” The small team of developers, using the slogan, “in video games we trust,” numbers just 17 as of this posting, but they are planning 12 additional games for the near future, according to their site.

Tunisia is an export-fueled economy, with agriculture accounting for 11.6 percent of the gross domestic product. Seven percent of the country’s income comes from tourism, particularly in the sandy city of Tataouine—shooting location for the planet Tatooine in Star Wars. On the Digital Mania website, they refer to their employees as “young padawans,” the Star Wars term for a Jedi in training.

Although winning a live cow may seem strange in the U.S., the milk-producing prize could quite possibly improve the lives of those who win it or receive it through charity. Lower-tiered winners of the competition walked away with home phones and computers, according to a report by French-language news site, Tuniscope. Considering the game is free-to-play with optional paid add-ons, it will be interesting to see how the game profits have been affected by the competition.

The popularity of the contest continues, with another cow named Brigitte up for grabs.

Activision Blizzard’s Mike Sepso On ESports Going Mainstream

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Activision Blizzard Media Networks SVP and co-founder of MLG, Mike Sepso, sees a future for eSports as a more sustainable industry in North America.

“Our mission is to take this as a sports business and a media business, to a much bigger audience,” said Sepso to [a]listdaily. “I think where eSports is lagging is there’s a lot of people watching, but it’s largely been funded as a marketing endeavor, so there hasn’t been of focus on how you monetize the content or the sport itself.”

“We’ve got big audiences. We want to get them much bigger in North America. But, we also want to start to create a more sustainable business behind eSports so that it is not just a marketing program to sell more games or drive more game engagement.”

Learning From NewFronts: 5 Biggest Marketing Takeaways For 2016

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NewFronts 2016 may not be over yet, but it’s obvious what the most successful marketing trends are going to be. Here are the top five marketing takeaways we’ve seen from this year’s digital advertising pitch event.

Digital Content Is King, Even In The Living Room

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Video Ad Spend study, 72 percent of respondents said they will move funds out of TV and make the move to digital video advertising. YouTube landed a $250 million investment deal during NewFronts this week, utilizing Google’s Premium Preferred advertising program and unskippable video ads.

Despite the transition from scheduled to streamed programming, watching your favorite shows from the comfort of your couch is still as popular as ever, thanks to Apple TV, Chromecast and video game console apps, among others. A large reason for this popularity stems from the ability to watch an entire series in one sitting, something that traditional TV makes you wait for. A recent study by Deloitte found that roughly half of Americans subscribe to some type of streaming service, and 70 percent of U.S. consumers watch an average of five episodes per sitting.

Video-streaming service Hulu, for example, will reach 12 million subscribers this month. 70 percent of Hulu’s viewing comes from connected TVs when just eight years ago, its viewership came entirely from desktop computers.

“Hulu is TV, and the fact that 70 percent of our viewing happens in a living room environment just reinforces that idea to the market,” said Peter Naylor, senior vice president of advertising sales with Hulu.

Snapchat

The Snapchat Strategy

Launched in 2011 as a messaging app, Snapchat now says that over 8 billion videos are viewed each day. It’s not surprising then, that a number of brands like Popsugar and Hearst have announced Snapchat initiatives to increase audience outreach. Buzzfeed in particular took notice of the 10-second storytelling platform, noting that 21 percent of all its views come from its Snapchat Discover channel. Meanwhile, digital publisher Vox Media announced a new Snapchat studio to create content for all eight of its brands which includes The Verge and Polygon.

Engagement Through Livestream

Livestreaming isn’t just for video games, although according to SuperData, the eSports market is now valued at $892.8 million. More brands are taking the live approach when it comes to audience engagement through concerts, announcements and live shows. BMW launched its M2 model live on Periscope last October, while Tastemade, a food and travel network, announced over 100 Facebook Live streams in the near future. Tequila manufacturer Jose Cuervo celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday by livestreaming a concert on their website.

During this year’s AOL NewFronts presentation, CEO Tim Armstrong revealed that his platform livestreams about one million hours of programming per day across all of its global partnerships. Twitch, although best known for its video game livestreams, also hosts a variety of content from interviews to behind the scenes documentaries. According to Quantcast, Twitch had over 216 million views in the last month alone.

Grooming Young Content Creators At NewFronts

To reach that coveted millennial audience, who better to create your content than an actual member of your target demographic? A popular theme during NewFronts has been the fostering of new talent through mentor programs, competition and sponsorship. Disney’s Maker studio announced that four original concepts from the Spark by Maker inaugural class have been selected to be green-lit for a series and hosted a private breakfast during NewFronts for an audience of young content creators. Condé Nast Entertainment’s Creators in Residence program specifically mentors millennials in their storytelling efforts.

Women, in particular, are being given a chance to shine in content creation, with Buzzfeed, Popsugar and Refinery29 announcing partnerships and programming to support females in the industry.

 

Condé Nast presents at NewFronts 2016. (Source: IAB)
Condé Nast Entertainment president, Dawn Ostroff discusses programming for millennials at NewFronts 2016. (Source: IAB)

Brands Are Taking VR And 360 Video Seriously

Although this isn’t the first time virtual reality was “the next big thing,” brands seem to be taking the advanced technology seriously at NewFronts for their marketing efforts. Bloomberg Media is integrating connected video (ads appearing at contextually appropriate times) and the New York Times is making the move to VR journalism. Refinery29 even announced their own unit called VR29 that will focus on virtual reality and 360-degree video content.

As we learned at the [a]list summit last month, it’s not enough to jump on the VR and 360 bandwagon—you have to tell compelling stories, and that takes a significant amount of thoughtful planning.

“Virtual reality is kind of a fun thing,” Shiraz Akmal, CEO and co-founder of SPACES said during the [a]list summit. “The simple definition we like to say is, ‘it can take you anywhere’ and part of that is a challenge of figuring out where you start. With the myriad of choices and decisions, we think it’s important, at least for 2016 and on, to think about a publishing strategy, if you will. Part of that strategy is deciding what you’re going to make.”

Snapchat Raises Prices For Interactive Video Ads

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Snapchat has been one of the bigger success stories in social media, drawing a number of big brand names and garnering eight billion daily video views from users. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the company is revising its video ad model at a slightly higher rate.

DigiDay recently reported that the company has doubled its price for its interactive video system, charging a minimum of four cents a view for 3Vi (vertical video views and interactive) ads. With these ads, users can swipe up to watch a longer video, install a separate app onto their phone, or visit a separate site. Meanwhile, non-interactive videos will continue to be two cents a view.

What does this add up to? Advertisers are now paying an upward of $40 CPM for interactive ads, even if users don’t follow them to view longer videos. This is twice what the usual $20 CPM comes out to.

“That was a big hike for the 3Vi ads, where you swipe up to interact, that increase for us was too high relative to the engagement rates we see,” said one Snapchat advertiser, speaking anonymously.

However, it’s worth noting that the system is currently in testing phase and only has a few advertisers, so the price could change. However, given the app’s robust daily view count, it’s just as likely to stick around.

This is the latest change to the company’s advertising model, as it also launched an ad system with a price tag that ranges between $500,000 and $700,000, and it can even be higher in some cases.

The only question now is how effective these new advertising prices can be, especially with Facebook growing its own video services. “This is going to be tricky for Snapchat in that they are up against very robust video products like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and it is likely hoping that post-campaign attitudinal studies will prove out the validity of the pricing model,” said Jill Sherman, senior vice president of social strategy for DigitasLBi. “Snapchat recognizes it is in a power position and that this is a shiny object that brands want to try.”

Growing Mobile Game Revenues ‘Five to Eight Times’

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Mike Vorhaus of Magid Associates spoke with Neil Young, CEO of N3twork and veteran of Electronic Arts, ngmoco, and DeNA, about the state of the mobile game market and where it’s headed. Young’s perspective is an interesting one that draws on his experience from all areas of the games business.

Young left Electronic Arts and started ngmoco (which stood for ‘next generation mobile company’), he did it because it just seemed “really f*king obvious” to him, as he told Vorhaus. “The original vision for ngmoco was really three ideas,” Young explained. “We wanted to be like first-party for mobile devices – we didn’t really feel that Apple, Google and others would be making games themselves. We wanted to build a network that would connect our games together, and we wanted to make that network available to third parties. We essentially accomplished that, though we never intended to be a free-to-play company.”

Young’s recollection of the early days of modern mobile games is important as a reminder that initially mobile games were seen as premium products. Those days seem long gone from mobile as free-to-play has taken over as by far the leading monetization model. “At some point the supply of applications outstripped the demand, and that forced us to think very differently to think about how to build a company,” Young said. “We shipped our first games in October of 2008, and Rolando was $9.99 and it was the #2 grossing game in the App Store.”

“Some people say that premium games have been, as they say on Wall Street, oversold, and they’ll actually come back,” Vorhaus said. “Do you have an opinion on that?” “I don’t think it’s going to come back on mobile,” Young replied. “I think mobile is a very unique platform and I don’t think people give mobile due credit. People are constantly trying to relate console experiences to mobile, and I think that denigrates both console quality and mobile quality. The types of games you build for mobile are just fundamentally different from a human experience than those types of things you build for console or PC. Because of that, because of the ecosystem, I don’t think true premium gaming is going to be a big business on mobile.”

True enough, but it’s worth noting that Minecraft‘s mobile version has sold over 20 million units at $6.99, and it continues to sell well every month. Yes, Minecraft is unique in many ways, but that doesn’t mean you should just ignore what Minecraft does. Some bold game company should take it as a challenge, both for game design and for marketing. That may be a viable market for a particular developer or two, but as Young notes it’s unlikely to be a major factor again in the mobile business.

There is one brand that comes to mind as a very good possibility for selling premium games on mobile—Nintendo. If there’s any game that would get people to pay a good price for a mobile game, it would be something like a good Mario title or a Zelda title.

Vorhaus inquired as to what Young is doing with his new company N3twork. The company was initially constrained from doing games because of restrictions on its founders, but after those were lifted “we entered the game space,” Young said. “As we looked at the mobile and video game market, it just continued to surprise us. A lot of those lessons and learnings about how to deliver high LTV (life-time value) experiences had yet to be put into practice. That is what we are dedicated towards today. We are building products and have a unique, proprietary technology platform that our products sit on top of, that are all designed to be high LTV games. The business rationale of the high LTV game is that the life-time value is higher than the cost of acquisition within some reasonable payback window. Instead of just relying on scale in order to be able to build a business, you can rely on yield and seek hits so that when you have an outsize hit you have a very successful business.”

“The mobile business today,” Young continued, “is kind of like baseball if you could only score off of home runs. What we’re trying to build is a company that’s capable of playing complete baseball.” Are there companies that Young would point to as good examples of how to generate more than one hit? “I think there’s two,” Young said. “I think there’s Supercell, which has a spectacular production process and discipline, and builds amazing pieces of software, and there’s Machine Zone, which has the same game framework and prosecutes high- LTV, ROI-positive user acquisition.”

Vorhaus turned the topic to user acquisition, noting that not long ago $2 was the norm and now $30 is not unusual for the top guys to spend on acquiring a single user. “Will your platform and your approach to discovery allow you to avoid that high expense, traditional way of user acquisition?”

“It’s difficult to avoid,” admitted Young. “The way to solve that problem is to build games that have a higher lifetime value than the cost of acquisition, and that’s really the number one focus for our company. Having said that, most people are now prosecuting in the mobile game space the same way they were in 2012. And there are some pretty new channels that you can access. Part of our platform that we use for our own products take advantage of those channels. When you have people with large-scale audiences, and a high degree of affinity with those audiences, there’s a tremendous opportunity there.”

Vorhaus asked whether the mobile market is changing, and how it might change in Young’s view. “I think it’s changing, and it’s going to get to the place that’s quite similar to what we see in Japan these days,” Young said in response. “In Japan, 44 out of the top 50 games are advertised on television. There are some unique factors in Japan for sure, but if you take those aside, that’s basically enabled by the fact that most of those games are what we would think of as high-LTV games. That can be driven to the biggest audience possible by deploying capital, and I think that’s going to happen here in the West.”

“I think what that means is we’re going to see the mobile games business here in the West making five to eight times its current size on a dollar basis,” Young continued. “There’s not going to be more people playing games on smartphones, that ship has sailed. What is going to change radically in the West is the average revenue per users, and that’s going to require us as game-makers to figure out how you take engagement and monetization systems and put them into pieces of software that can be as broadly compelling as possible so that we can drive big businesses based on software that people love.”

 

Image courtesy VentureBeat

6 ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Promotions That Blew Fans Away

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This is the year for epic showdowns, as Captain America: Civil War hit theaters this weekend. In it, the iconic superheroes Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) gather their forces and battle it out in a war over ideologies. With characters that span multiple franchises from the Marvel film universe, this is one superhero throwdown that cannot be missed. Here is how both sides won support for the movie.

Trailers Win Hearts and Minds

You could argue that Captain America: Civil War won fans over with its first trailer when it hit the scene last November. Although the movie is technically a follow-up to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, this was actually a culmination of three different Marvel franchises that was years in the making: Captain America, Iron Man, and The Avengers. were coming together to battle each other over what happened in previous films, with friends becoming foes, and it wasn’t clear that everyone would come out alive. The trailer, which showed a gravely wounded War Machine (Don Cheadle) sparked a fierce internet debate over the fate of the character. It was the kind of speculation that the movie studio and actors were happy to stoke at talk shows and interviews, even if they couldn’t comment directly about it.

Although the Super Bowl 50 trailer was impressive, the one that really caught the attention of Marvel fans came out a month later, when Spider-man was shown for the first time. It was long speculated that Disney and Marvel were in talks with Sony (which currently owns the Spider-man license) to “borrow” the wall-crawler for Civil War, but having the trailer confirm that it was happening got fans cheering.

It turned out that Spider-man wouldn’t be the last big character reveal, as the inclusion of Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) was revealed at the MTV Movie Awards in April, where a scene showing him as the “new recruit” was shown. Fans were wondering whether the character would appear as an Avenger, especially given how the Ant-Man movie concluded, and they were not disappointed.

Dueling Twitter Accounts

Captain America and Iron Man use more than their fists to fight. The conflict was taken to social media, where the characters used their Twitter accounts to win fans and supporters over to their side. Although both accounts share many of the same content, they’re individually geared to show support for one of the characters before they head out to theaters to see who the ultimate winner will be.

Adding to the fun are sets of emoji, so that fans can show their support (or simply enhance their posts) with individual characters from the film.

Fans Take Sides

One of the most impressive social media promotions done for Captain America: Civil War also comes via Twitter. Actors from the movie pre-recorded personal messages to fans who showed support for their favorite team using either the #TeamCap or #TeamIronMan hashtags. These messages used popular names so that the messages, which either congratulated them or showed disappointment in their choice, had a personalized feel to them.

Civil War Goes Global

Although the movie features Captain America, the popularity of the Marvel superhero universe spans the globe. In an apparent battle of one-upmanship, actor Robert Downey Jr. paid a visit to Paris, France. There, he used his Iron Man decorated smartphone to manipulate the lights of the Eiffel Tower so that they changed color and position to show what side the “Iron Lady” stood on.

Not to be outdone, Team Cap fired back with a light show of its own. Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan attended an event hosted in Singapore and it was complete with a fireworks display and massive projections of the superhero team shown on the tower and structures of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, as a crowd cheered Team Cap on.

Pizza Hut Feeds Fandom

Pizza-Hut-launches-Captain-America-Civil-War-themed-promotion-678x381

Supporting a side is hunger-inducing work, but an order from Pizza Hut should be enough to fix that. In a promotional partnership between the fast food chain and Captain America: Civil War, pizza boxes will be adorned with artwork featuring either Captain America or Iron Man, which coincides with the inclusion of Stuffed Garlic Knots on the $5 Flavor Menu. Although it’s unclear whether you can request a specific box cover, you can’t go wrong with either one.

Additionally, Pizza launched a Civil War themed digital hub, which features exclusive behind-the-scenes content, a quiz game sweepstakes, and (of course) a chance to choose your favorite side.

A Patriotic Sing-Along

One of the stranger promotions for Civil War comes from Chris Evans’ YouTube account yesterday. Working with Mashable, the actor begins by talking about his character, Captain America. He is then joined by fellow actors from the movie, including Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Anthony Mackie (Falcon), and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), who hum a battle hymn while Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier) wanders across the background. It’s off-the-wall, patriotic, and sure to get fans psyched for the movie, which is out in theaters now, and pre-orders for the digital home release are already available on the Microsoft Store.