Member Article

1 million downloads for Volkswagen mobile racing app ‘Sports Car Challenge 2’

In 10 weeks, the driving simulator app has delivered 5m virtual test-drives, over 25,000 VW dealership and 1m website enquires

Volkswagen Group’s latest racing experience app, Sports Car Challenge 2, has achieved the magic 1,000,000 global downloads in only 10 weeks.

The race experience app, developed in 2013 with Proelios’ partners Fishlabs Entertainment, is the follow up to Volkswagen’s most successful mobile driving app, the 12m downloaded ‘Sports Car Challenge’, and forms part of Volkswagen’s Sports Car Initiative programme focused on raising awareness of the company’s premium sports brands and products in the Chinese and Asian markets.

The series of apps enables consumers to virtually test-drive sports cars from Volkswagen’s Group brands Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche and Volkswagen in a multitude of conditions and environments. Due to the latest smartphones and tablets powerful processing capabilities, hyper-realistic renders and physics of each car and race track provide consumers with an exact virtual experience of a real-life test drive through their mobile devices.

Volkswagen Group China, senior product manager digital marketing group sports car, motorsport & car culture, Cornelia Plattner said, “The reason why the Sports Car Challenge series of mobile racing apps in China and across the world are so successful is due to the realism in which they represent our products and how they connect potential customers to the Volkswagen brands. Exact both visually and dynamically, consumers can fully experience the excitement of driving an Audi TT through to a Bugatti Veyron, and when they want share their achievement with friends, request more information on the particular brand or drive the car in real-life, the app simply links them directly to the relevant sites or to their nearest dealership.”

Andreas Stecher, director business development and sales of Deep Silver Fishlabs said, “We learnt a great deal from how consumers interacted and enjoyed the original Sports Car Challenge and what they wanted from the sequel. Primarily the focus was on the cars themselves - how detailed they looked and how they handled. We’re confident that Sports Car Challenge 2 is the ultimate driving experience on mobile and we’re absolutely thrilled with success it has achieved so far.”

Kristien Wendt, Proelios partner and head of client services said, “No other racing app series has recreated cars to this level of detail and performance on mobile before and with over 13m downloads to date, the Sports Car Challenge series has helped Volkswagen connect to millions of consumers, generate over 25,000,000 virtual test drives and deliver massive awareness for its premium brands. Reaching out to consumers on a global scale, engaging them through interactive experiences, whilst educating and connecting to them at the same time can only be achieved through these branded apps. Our approach to branded mobile experiences is a very profitable and efficient stepping stone to connect brands to consumers.”

Download Sports Car Challenge 2 for Androis or iOS for free.

About Proelios - Mobile Brand Gaming

Proelios develop high quality mobile videogame apps for brands designed to engage, inform and connect with consumers on mobile devices around the world and was established to help brands capitalise on the explosion of mobile gaming.

In 2013, the average age of a US smartphone gamer was 41, whilst US consumers who played games on smartphones and tablets every day reached over 146m. The EU now boasts over 212m consumers who play mobile games with Korea/Japan & China numbering over 224m. The year-on-year increase of mobile gaming adoption between 2012 and 2013 in these markets alone was 25% with the gender split roughly 50/50*.

Proelios’ mobile brand games are designed to maximise brand engagement with consumers through exciting gameplay experiences, virtual 3D product interaction, connection to online/offline touch points, intuitive game architecture and high quality production.

Launched in 2013, Proelios – Brand Gaming is a joint venture between the founders of the award-winning videogames developer Fishlabs Entertainment GmbH and specialist communications consultancy Character Communications Ltd to help brands connect to consumers in the most popular and fastest growing area of mobile entertainment.

* Newzoo Data Explorer 2013

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Lucy Kamall .