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Solving UA: Pocket Gems hopes its Night at the Museum game will ride third movie's coattails to success

Hidden Object game out now

Solving UA: Pocket Gems hopes its Night at the Museum game will ride third movie's coattails to success

Demonstrating the expectations that mobile game makers are placing in movies to cut their UA costs - providing a wider, cheaper and potentially more committed audience - Pocket Gems has released a game based on the Night at the Museum films.

The 20th Century Fox franchise is now onto its third release, which is due out this holiday season.

Pocket Gems has meshed gameplay with the IP in the shape of its hidden object game Night at the Museum: Hidden Treasures, which features locations ranging from the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History and National Air & Space Museum to the focus of the current film, the British Museum in London.

Keeping it clean

As you'd expect this genre is female-skewed; something that should match the film's family-friendly audience.

It's also an interesting lateral move in terms of shifting away from a F2P environment, which previously has been very focused on time-based building and simulation; generating vocal criticism in the process.

As a genre, a hidden object game will be less controversial if, given the smaller price of in-app purchases, less lucrative.

The other influencing factor is Pocket Gems only had six months to make the game.

Pocket Gems is also hoping the films' to-date global appeal will provide a wide reach: something it's backing with the game supporting nine languages, including Japanese, Korean and Chinese - at launch.

Interestingly, though, the game won't be officially released in China yet. That will only come if the film gains one of the currently 34 prized quota slots for international features in the country.


Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.