The Game Report
Bytro Labs GmbH
Issue 31 | June 2014
Agency
serviceplan
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Alexander Schill Executive Creative Director Matthias Harbeck Creative Directors Till Diestel Marcell Francke Copywriter Lorenz Langgartner Art Director Franz Roeppischer Graphic Design Franz Roeppischer
Production Team
Graphic Design/ Screendesign/ Illustration Eat, Sleep + Design GmbH Programmer Philipp Schmidt Production Company LIGA 01 Sound Design Philipp Feit (German Wahnsinn)
Other Credits
Account Supervisor Tobias Pieper Programmer Lorenz Langgartner
Date
March 2014
Background
BytroLabs was a German startup that specialised in producing innovative browser games. While its games had already collected more than five million players worldwide, the company was looking for new investors as well as new business contacts in general. They wanted an idea that would help start conversations and lead to new business opportunities.
Idea
To get potential investors to experience BytroLabs' skills in developing games, their company report was turned into a computer game.
Mailed out in email as a simple text file, it was formatted in such a way that if the reader changed the file extension from .txt to .html, the business data became the programming parameters of a game.
You could both read about Bytro then play Bytro.
Results
The Company Report game was sent out to around 500 contacts worldwide: to potential investors and other digital media companies as well as journalists, bloggers and industry opinion leaders. Within a week, BytroLabs had received more than 300 replies, eventually totaling a response rate of 94%. The responses were overwhelmingly positive and led to many new business relationships, the most significant of which was with Stillfront Group, an important Swedish digital entertainment company, who merged with Bytro to become one of Europe's leading cross platform providers of digital entertainment.
Our Thoughts
Most company reports are dry and dull but serviceplan has made a ‘thing’ of turning them into creative masterpieces. There was the annual report for Bang & Olufsen, which was sung and sent out on a CD for shareholders to listen to. Then the annual report for Austrian Solar, which was printed with sun- sensitive inks and which could only be read after exposure to direct sunlight. And now this brilliant demonstration of what Bytro actually does as well as a summary of its financial performance.