With so much crazy news happening, games based on current events are becoming more common and easier to launch quickly on mobile platforms. Another one announced today is Cellufun’s Made Off, which lets users play Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
Madoff reportedly made off with $65 billion. This game lets players set up and manage their own Ponzi schemes. Aspiring Madoffs recruit their friends and other Cellufun users to invest their hard-earned CelluPoints, Cellufun’s virtual currency. The offer of a high yielding interest rate encourages players to invest in each other and withdraw money just like in a real Ponzi scheme. Players unable to make interest payments will go bankrupt and lose all of their investors’ virtual money.
Games like this push the notion of taste to its limit and rely on humor to justify themselves. Other recent games include ones based on the swine flu, a game about layoffs and the rescue of a captain from Somali pirates. One recent topical game that got pulled was Konami’s Six Days in Fallujah, which generated a lot of controversy because it was a game about what many considered to be a massacre on both sides of the Iraq war. The latter was a big production, but most are short-term quickie projects.
As a fund manager, you can post ads within the Cellufun network that are searchable by investors. The ads mention what you as a fund manager are promising as your rate of return on the CelluPoints they would invest in you. Investors can search for these ads and decide who they want to invest in, or they can be recruited by their friends who have started their own fund.
The game is free and works on over 7,000 cell phones. “Made Off” will only be available until June, the month the Feds busted Madoff last year. Putting an expiration date on a game is unusual. The game teaches people about Ponzi schemes and taps into the curiosity and emotion people have about Madoff, said Neil Edwards, chief executive of Cellufun in New York.
The company says its games generate more than 200 million monthly page views. Cellufun was founded in 2005 and has 15 employees. It raised $3 million from Longworth Capital in 2007.