Too Much Free Time

Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick




Online Game Shows How Accountants Would Save Record Labels

from the role-playing dept

Well, it's Friday, so here's a decent Friday time-wasting post. We've heard of all sorts of bizarre marketing attempts online, and we've seen lots of organizations use video games to try to market a product. Hell, even the US Army is doing it. But, did you ever expect a bunch of accountants to put together their own online role-playing game? The Raw Feed points us to The Turnaround Game, created by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), where you get to play the role of the hotshot CPA who has to go in and save a flailing record label from its skyrocketing costs and nasty MP3 pirates. The game is a bit silly (I stopped after one level) and includes a crack about only suing 12-year-olds and grandmothers (hmm, wonder where that came from) -- but proceeds on a fairly obvious path. Accountants are wonderful people, and we're thrilled with the two that we've had help us with Techdirt over the years, but "playing accountant" just isn't that exciting, especially when put in the cliche world of a record label working on a silly project. In fact, if you had to guess what a game created by accountants would be like, you probably have a pretty good idea of how this game works. Everything is pretty much "by the book." However, if you've got some time to kill today, go try to save the record label, you hotshot CPA-wannabe.

8 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Jan 6th, 2006 @ 8:23am
  • just wondering

    by a mystified gamer

    why the hell would we want to save a record label in times like this personally id rather live without musicv than hear stories about a grandma getting sued sony bmg and riaa heres to you _|_

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Jan 6th, 2006 @ 8:29am
    • Don't you get it?

      by Anonymous Coward

      Come on guys, it's not that hard. Basically, these guys are about to lose their job beacuase they can't save the dying record agencies, and they wanna see if it's even possible in a make believe game world to save them.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Jan 6th, 2006 @ 8:35am
      • Re: Don't you get it?

        by a mystified gamer

        ya i think we guessed as much, too bad they chose a thing to save that wed all rather get a "game over song bmg was pwned"

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Jan 6th, 2006 @ 10:53am
      • Re: Don't you get it?

        by Anonymous Coward

        Accountants aren't going to go out of business. They may have to get new jobs, but the record labels are the only ones looking at their whole business model going away. Somebody will replace the RIAA companies, most likely it will be services similar to iTunes and Starbucks' build your own CD kiosks. Anyone who figures out how to make money selling music is going to need accountants.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Jan 6th, 2006 @ 9:22am
  • Jan 6th, 2006 @ 9:26am
  • Role playing of the future

    by what tha

    Anyone seen the role playing game where you can be a landscaper, and save a dieing lawn from weeds?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jan 6th, 2006 @ 11:23am
  • It would be awesome if they could do that with...

    Here are a few more like those though there are quite a few lemonaid shops and what not about.


    www.sbm.temple.edu/~oliva/game.html

    www.disney.go.com/hotshot/hsb2

    Airport Tycoon, Railroad Tycoon and this other Marketing game that literally taught you everything you needed to know to get you MBA practically. Unfortunantly I can't remember the name and try using any search engine as a back-up brain for marketing and game...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML
Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It