Comedy Central’s South Park Advergames

So, the new season of South Park starts October 3rd (this coming Wednesday), and I am not going to lie, I am pretty excited. I am a pretty big fan of the show. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of wit, cynicism, and overall right-on satirical humor that pours out of those four little fourth grader’s mouths. And also, for whatever reason, I usually find myself agreeing with the views (although they usually aren’t really views…they are usually more in the form of harsh criticisms) that the shows creators (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) voice through the characters of the show. Comedy Central really hit it big when they signed this show on 10 years ago. And it is still hilarious today. But I digress; the point here is that the show is starting this Wednesday, so Comedy Central has been airing a ton of late-night rerun episodes of South Park to promote the beginning of season 12. And another one of the things that they have been airing between shows is a commercial urging the viewers to go to Comedycentral.com (attempting to brand spiral in order to promote the show) and check out the South Park page, in order to play the “South Park Big Wheel Death Rally,” among other South Park-branded games.



Big Wheel Death Rally is basically a rip-off of a game like Nintendo’s Mario Kart, and it is equally, if not more entertaining, as you can be any of 16 characters (some of which are locked), and you see all of their mannerisms and character traits come through in the game. Also, guess who bought a bit of ad space before the game even begins? Sierra Mist has a 30 second-or-so interstitial ad that takes place while the game is loading...which likely helps Comedy Central bring in a bit more revenue, or at least recoup some of the costs of creating the game (s). On the Games section of the Web site, you can play not only Big Wheel Death Rally, but also 11 other games in the following categories: Action and Arcade, Brainteasers, Card and Board, and even Wireless Games, which you can download and play on your phone. Who could resist downloading a game for their phone that has a description that begins with “Capture hippies [and] kill ninjas..."



So, yet another reason to love Comedy Central’s South Park: advergames. Comedy Central is pretty clever, as they have kept the show around for a long time, and thus they continue to profit off of it hand-over-fist…and now, they, like many other companies out there, have realized the importance of gaming for Americans in general, and, specifically, the target audience of the group that would most likely be watching South Park.