With the release of Rihanna’s UNLOCKED this week, both social gaming and the process of releasing of an album took a quantum leap forward. The game (which runs as an embedded Facebook application) creates a mission structure around the exploration of the new album’s content, behind-the-scenes footage, and a boldly reimagined web presence.
Social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter offer a degree of connection from artist to fan, but offer little in the way of true content. iTunes, YouTube, Amazon, and Spotify are delivery vehicles for the content, but offer little interactivity or true fan engagement. And paradoxically, an artist’s branded website still offers perhaps the best opportunity to create a coherent fan-facing artistic vision, but increasingly has difficulty luring attention away from these other more regular stops on a fan’s daily surfing schedule. How is a modern artist to weave all of these identities together? UNLOCKED is a great attempt to solve this problem. The game creates a purpose and a roadmap for fans to explore Rihanna’s world online.
Of course, here at Monstrous, we feel like that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
