Interview to Blaster Foundry CEO Francesco Fichera
May 7, 2021
We got in touch with Francesco Fichera, young CEO at the startup Blaster Foundry, software house skilled in advergame production.
Do You know what an “advergame” is? It’s a kind of video game designed to market or sell products or raise a company brand. “Advergame” is “advertising” and “videogame” in the same concept, it means that the advertising and communications tools are embedded in a gamification process in order to engage new clients and fans. “Advergames” are better than traditional advertising, because they enhance teamwork management and improve research and development activities.
In this interview we’re speaking to Francesco Fichera, CEO at the italian video game company Blaster Foundry: have a look at the website https://blasterfoundry.com/ to play some advergame-demos and read more information about this amazing company! All the advergames are developed in HTML5, easy to share on common browsers and download-free – it’s a perfect condition to run lead generation campaigns.
Nice to meet You Francesco and thanks for this interview chance! Please tell us about Blaster Foundry, how this startup was founded and how it is characterized today on the entertainment and advertising market?
Blaster Foundry is a very young company but it had been in my head for a very long time. Indeed, a friend of mine and I decided to open a Facebook community for video game fans. The community was just a “draft” of the Blaster Foundry project. Some expenses, my studies and work commitments abroad slowed down the growth of the project. For this reason, I decided to put it on standby, despite my wish to work in the video game industry.
When did you go back to work on the project?
A few years after my work experience in a startup based in Vienna (Austria) ended, I decided to go back to my hometown Catania (Italy), because I always thought it was important to create something beautiful and useful in the country I always lived. I didn’t have very clear ideas, but I really wanted to design and produce video games. One day I thought: let’s try to develop video games for companies? And there I had Blaster Foundry.
Please explain the advergame by Your own words
Advergame is the match between “advertising” and “video game”. It’s a video game developed for third-party companies in order to run brand awareness, leads generation, remarketing campaigns. The advergame changes the user from passive to active.
What’s Your typical customer?
Big companies are the typical customers of “adver games”. For example, do You know that Ferrero in 1999 developed its own adver game and it’s still in use? Our startup produces a kind of “adver game” named “meme games” – they’re games concerning breaking topics. Our Mario Draghi “meme game” was published when he took office in Rome! (https://blasterfoundry.com/politicamente-fallendo/playnow/)
How an “adver game” is produced?
When an “adver game” production is assigned, first of all we analyse objectives and the “Generation Z” targets. Then we produce a summary document of structure, graphics and music, named “Game Design Document”. Once the document is approved, development starts. The HTML 5 language let us produce light “web games”, with a “just a link to play” gameplay. The link sharing access to the game is really important to guarantee the “viral factor” of the game itself. When the game is published we provide detailed Analytics (GDPR Compliant) to the company about the number of players, time of use, age etc – we use IA and AR analytical services, in the future we are planning to publish our worn software to manage and consult the analytical data.
What are the business benefits in advergaming?
“Adver games” improve customers and players engagement, achieve the lead generation objectives, analyses custom data with customized metrics. The HTML 5 technology runs games on any device. You can increase Your brand awareness and get many business benefits when You buy Your own advergame.
What’s next for Blaster Foundry?
As mentioned above, the development of a data and games management system platform is next for us. And we are going to develop a new project of “Serious Gaming”, they would be video games work training, educational, medical illustrations. The “Serious Gaming” customers are not only private companies but also, for example, no-profit organizations or people with disabilities.
Credits:
Email: [email protected]
Tel.: +39 3921357931
