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.
