Patent Infringement Lawsuit As Publicity Stunt >>
<< Apple Goes On The Offensive: Sues Burst.com...
 tdicon 


Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Jan 6th 2006 3:16am





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..


If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1.  

    just wondering

    identicon
    a mystified gamer, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 8:23am

    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 | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Don't you get it?

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 8:29am

    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 | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: Don't you get it?

    identicon
    a mystified gamer, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 8:35am

    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 | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Role playing of the future

    identicon
    what tha, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 9:26am

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

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    Re: Don't you get it?

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 10:53am

    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 | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  

    It would be awesome if they could do that with...

    identicon
    Andrew Strasser, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 11:23am

    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 | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  

    Re: It would be awesome if they could do that with

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 1:43pm

    Capitalism 2?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>


Patent Infringement Lawsuit As Publicity Stunt >>
<< Apple Goes On The Offensive: Sues Burst.com...
 tdicon 

A word from our Sponsors...
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss

Powered by Postrank

From the Techdirt Archive...
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This