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Advergaming At Its Most Honest?

Doritos game mentions bags of chips, hands out 200 achievement points like they were nothing.

Dinosaurs. Love. Trucks.
Dinosaurs. Love. Trucks.
Dash of Destruction is the winning entry in the Unlock Xbox contest that Doritos sponsored way back. The contest had entrants design a Doritos-based video game. The threat was that the winning entry would be turned into an actual Xbox Live Arcade release. But by being absolutely transparent about its intentions, it's actually not bad.

The game is a modern retelling of the old "dinosaurs vs. Doritos delivery trucks" fable that we all loved as children. You play from both sides. As the T-Rex, you scamper around and through a city, destroying buildings as you attempt to eat Doritos trucks. At the end of every level, you receive an enhancement, like a metal face that lets you bash through buildings. Eating enough trucks ends the level.

As the truck, you need to avoid the dinosaurs and make your way to different delivery drops to win. Your truck is enhanced as you complete levels. Completing both of these campaigns took me around 15 minutes and got me all of the achievements, save one that asks you to win a multiplayer game. That's local multiplayer, so plugging in a second controller made that easy.

200 points in 20 minutes essentially puts this in the Avatar school of "dude, points!" What's interesting is that the game makes blatant mention of the points, inviting you to "get your gamerscore on" as you play.

So that's their proposition: if you're willing to play an interactive little thing that, incidentally, mentions Dortios and has logos and stuff on it, they'll give you 200 achievement points. In this case, it doesn't feel particularly evil, but now that I have all 200 of those points, I'm left wondering what this means for the future. Will this eventually set off a trend of advergames that effectively give you 200 points for watching ads? Will developers be able to maintain a balance that prevents the branding from getting too heavy, even in something that's been designed as an ad? Will this game prove successful enough to even warrant more advertisers to jump in and do the same thing?

One thing I do know, though. Mike Borland, the contest winner, is credited in the game. So now he has his own page. Also? I sort of want a bag of Doritos now. Crap. It worked.
Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

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jeff

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Edited By jeff
Dinosaurs. Love. Trucks.
Dinosaurs. Love. Trucks.
Dash of Destruction is the winning entry in the Unlock Xbox contest that Doritos sponsored way back. The contest had entrants design a Doritos-based video game. The threat was that the winning entry would be turned into an actual Xbox Live Arcade release. But by being absolutely transparent about its intentions, it's actually not bad.

The game is a modern retelling of the old "dinosaurs vs. Doritos delivery trucks" fable that we all loved as children. You play from both sides. As the T-Rex, you scamper around and through a city, destroying buildings as you attempt to eat Doritos trucks. At the end of every level, you receive an enhancement, like a metal face that lets you bash through buildings. Eating enough trucks ends the level.

As the truck, you need to avoid the dinosaurs and make your way to different delivery drops to win. Your truck is enhanced as you complete levels. Completing both of these campaigns took me around 15 minutes and got me all of the achievements, save one that asks you to win a multiplayer game. That's local multiplayer, so plugging in a second controller made that easy.

200 points in 20 minutes essentially puts this in the Avatar school of "dude, points!" What's interesting is that the game makes blatant mention of the points, inviting you to "get your gamerscore on" as you play.

So that's their proposition: if you're willing to play an interactive little thing that, incidentally, mentions Dortios and has logos and stuff on it, they'll give you 200 achievement points. In this case, it doesn't feel particularly evil, but now that I have all 200 of those points, I'm left wondering what this means for the future. Will this eventually set off a trend of advergames that effectively give you 200 points for watching ads? Will developers be able to maintain a balance that prevents the branding from getting too heavy, even in something that's been designed as an ad? Will this game prove successful enough to even warrant more advertisers to jump in and do the same thing?

One thing I do know, though. Mike Borland, the contest winner, is credited in the game. So now he has his own page. Also? I sort of want a bag of Doritos now. Crap. It worked.
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Thrawn1

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Edited By Thrawn1

the best part was how in the game, "campaign" descriptions included the mentioning of gamerscore

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Quadrifoglio

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Edited By Quadrifoglio

Doritos. Yum.

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MattyFTM

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Edited By MattyFTM  Moderator

Ever since hearing about this game I've wanted some Doritos. I think this is the only time advertising has ever had a noticeable effect on me.

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breadfan

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Edited By breadfan

For a free game it wasn't as terrible as Yaris was, but an easy 200 points is ok with me.  I don't need another reason to go out and buy more Doritos anyway.

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freezerr

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JohnDudebro

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Edited By JohnDudebro

THE BLUE BAG IS THE REAL BAG

F THAT NACHO CHEESE CRAP
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LordAndrew

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Edited By LordAndrew

This is my first Xbox 360 game. I went on Xbox.com and "bought" it, so it'll automatically be downloaded when I buy an Xbox 360 and connect to Xbox Live. :)

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luvcraft

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Edited By luvcraft

this is, indeed, refreshingly honest. I doubt that this will cause "a rash of crappy advergames", because the companies know that your opinion of their product is going to be tied to your opinion of the advergame, and an awful game will actually make you less interested in their product. (Some advertising execs will tell you "any mindshare is good mindshare", but they're lying.)

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yellownumber5

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Edited By yellownumber5

200 Free Advertising *ahem* I mean Achievement Points YaY!

Achievement points are kind of pointless (no pun) now days anyway.  Achievements are fun to get but I don't care about the points or trophy levels or any of that crap.  So Doritos can have NO hold on me, HA HA HA! *crunch* mmmmm... salsa verde.

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RHCPfan24

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Edited By RHCPfan24

200 points for a free game easily? OMG. Now this game has really gotten my attention. 

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agentboolen

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Edited By agentboolen

Yea Yaris was pathetic, I hate that game sooo much that I would never by the car Yaris...  Thats when advertising games can really hurt your product!!!  Make something good and it will make me think that much more about it, bring something bad and Ill never forgive you as a brand.

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Double0hFor

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Edited By Double0hFor

original doritos are the best doritos ever!

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Venatio

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Edited By Venatio

I played it and loved it, got all achievement points

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piecat

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Edited By piecat

I just got 200/200 points. Awesome game. Possibly my GOTY, in fact.

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darkjester74

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Edited By darkjester74

Achievement Unlocked : 5G - Nacho Ranch!
By being a greedy slob, you managed to get BOTH flavors of Doritos on your controller.  Congrats you pig!

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Stevokenevo

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Edited By Stevokenevo

I'd be abit worried that this might degenerate into:  "Watch this commercial for McKFKing and get 100 points!"  as jeff mentioned.

Although i guess you could just put it on and mute it and go make a cup of tea, thus bitch slapping the advertising company.

edit: Although i guess you could just put it on and mute it and go eat a pack of doritos, thus bitch slapping the advertising company......F***

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Cybexx

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Edited By Cybexx

This is what adver-gaming should be. Completely transparent about its intentions. Scion was such crap its cool to see a decent game come out of this finally. And from a well known developer (NinjaBee) to boot. Sure its not amazing and after getting all the easy points I don't really have any intention of going back to it. But, it was fun while it lasted. And it wasn't even branded as much as I expected it to be, I am amazed that the Doritos logo isn't on every screen of the game.

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Gameboi

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Edited By Gameboi

Seems reasonable enough to me.  They let you know what you are in for up front, and you decide from there.

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hatking

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Edited By hatking

Best advertgame ever.  It was mildly amusing while it lasted, gave me the easiest 200 points I've ever gotten and now I'm aching for some Doritos.

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Death_Burnout

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Edited By Death_Burnout

Seriously, your Dorito Collisions are better than our Dorito Collisions!

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weltal

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Edited By weltal

Two news stories about Dash of Destruction?

Giant Bomb: Brought to you by Doritos - An EXPLOSION of flavor.

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Edited By fknryn

i just beat it and ate an apple

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MattyFTM

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Edited By MattyFTM  Moderator
Weltal said:
"Two news stories about Dash of Destruction?

Giant Bomb: Brought to you by Doritos - An EXPLOSION of flavor."
No, Giant Bomb is Powered by Dew :P
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Edited By MisterSpiffy

I have no problem with this.  I know what I'm getting into, and it's a free game. :]

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Edited By Not_Rage

Advergaming does work. After I played one of those M&M games, I bought some M&M for the first time in years. The blue bag of Doritos is by far the best. The red bag is also pretty good. Never seen the yellow bag. 

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Edited By JoelTGM

I had a bag of spicy doritos chips today, and they weren't spicy at all.  They used to be, just like the jalapeno chips.  Does my mouth get used to it after a while?

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Edited By JoblessTerence

I liked how it knew that it wasn't very good and it's only purpose was to boost gamerscores. I beat it 5 minutes ago and the only achievement I have left is the multiplayer one.

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MordeaniisChaos

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Edited By MordeaniisChaos

Mmmmm,
Doritos

Hell I think this is the way to go. You aren't forced to wait through the game to play another, or watch a movie, or TV show, its a choice. And it doesn't SUCK.

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Edited By Kane

i once said "doritos and mountain dew...the offical dinner of gamers"   it looks like they took notice

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JJOR64

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Edited By JJOR64

Got the 200 G already.   lol

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TechnicallyProficient

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I mention this every chance I get: I got all 200 points in Sneak King. Yeah.

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Edited By Geno

Hey, not all advergames are bad, look at Cool Spot.

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Edited By Geno

Hey, not all advergames are bad, look at Cool Spot.

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Edited By sparky_buzzsaw

Argh!  Now I want some Doritos.  Damn you advertising!

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Edited By Lukeweizer

I hope this creates for food companies to give us free, easy gamerscore arcade games.

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Edited By Cubical

I voted for this game j ust because it had dinosuars in it.

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Edited By albedos_shadow

Surprisingly, I actually had some fun with it. Though I can't get that damn multiplayer achievement without a second controller... or friends...

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Edited By Duckbutter

you know what's wak? some dude eats Doritos and then runs to the mailbox and back and he's out of breath, then he starts talkin to you, breathin hard in your face with alotta H words like "Hey homie, hows it hangin, huh?" and it fucks your nose hair up every time because the smell of Doritos commin out of another man's mouth is deee fuckin scusting. and Corn Nuts too. it should be unlawful to breathe after eatin that shit.

its good to see regular folk behind the games again. i wish Microsoft would fuckin throw AudioSurf on the DLC list. they obviously support independent games and they have enough gay Bukkake love makin sessions with their best friends Valve, you'd think a little AudioSurf would show up some where.

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FotherMucker

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Edited By FotherMucker

I absoutly loved this game. Not only was it a nice free 200 points but it was really fun! I even had fun playing as the Doritos truck. God dammit I want a bag of it now. Damn they got to me!

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Edited By Brackynews

Bag of Munchies Snack Mix is at the ready...

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Edited By Johanz

Being free, this game is actually pretty cool. The destruction is decent as the T-Rex and it's well.. Fun! I wouldn't mind more levels really.

Borland for president!

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Edited By Kevin479

this is how that stupid yaris game should have been

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TaintedSun

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Edited By TaintedSun

Didn't we sort of already talk about this? Only new info was achievement details. AMIRITE?

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Edited By DrRandle

For a free game, it was actually kind of entertaining. I enjoyed the fact that it new exactly what it was. It's humor was actually pretty strong, I would say. Personally, I buy Dorito's all the time anyway, so this really didn't effect me... but it's nice to be paid to interact with a commercial, in gamer points. Essentially, I feel I got more out of this deal than they did.

I wish more advertisements were both enjoyable and paid me to deal with them.

So if Jonathan Blow hates advertisements in video games, I wonder how he feels about a video game that is an advertisement...

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Red

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Edited By Red

The game was amusing for the 20 minutes it lasted and the 200 points it gave me makes me want to eat Doritos just out of the honor system.

Dang are they good.
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JonathanMoore

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Edited By JonathanMoore

mmm...dorito's....dammit.

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Edited By brydello

Well that was an easy 200GS.

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Edited By eduardo

I actually liked the game, it's like an old arcade game, incredibly simple.

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Media_Master

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Edited By Media_Master

i'm stilll not buying it