Grand Opening: ESPN Games and Playdom Officially Launch ESPN Sports Bar & Grill

Social game presented by Samsung gives fans the ultimate fantasy of running their own sports bar and grill, featuring real-time simulations to live games, scores and news, virtual ESPN media properties, compete with friends and more
ESPN Games and Playdom today officially launched ESPN’s highly anticipated sophomore social game release on Facebook titled ESPN Sports Bar & Grill presented by Samsung. The game gives fans a virtual destination to run their own sports bar and grill, win over loyal customers, decorate walls with sports paraphernalia, show simulated live and on-demand games via flatscreens, get real-time scores and news, interact with friends and their sports bar and grills and more.
Fans are challenged with all the day-to-day management duties of a real sports bar and grill owner. The more patrons served and kept happy, the bigger the buzz, popularity and success of the bar and grill. By earning more, owners can purchase enhancements to their sports bars to level up faster, including expansion, flatscreen TVs, the Samsung Galaxy Tab™ and TVs, posters, signs, arcade games, sports memorabilia, tables, chairs, bar stools and more. For players under the age of 21, the game experience will be customized to serving food and non-alcoholic beverages.
Most importantly, fans will never be far away from the latest news in the sports world while playing ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Owners can simulate a broadcast of live and on-demand games through the bar’s TVs to follow real-time scores and big in-game moments, all while entertaining patrons and watching them cheer on the bar’s favorite team. Additionally, owners can pipe a live feed of ESPN Radio through the sound system and receive the latest sports news via ESPN Ticker – all while managing their sports bar and grill.
For additional challenges, owners will be able to compete within the Game Predictor pick ‘em game integrated within ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. The more correct predictions among owners and their top friends, the more rewards earned. In Collections, owners earn items that consumers drop like bats, balls, down markers and more. There’s even a “Cheater’s Collection” that includes items like corked bats and a “Hockey Collection” to collect missing teeth. Owners are able to complete their sets by trading extras with friends.
“Following the success of ESPNU College Town, we pulled out all the bells and whistles for the launch of ESPN Sports Bar & Grill, our most integrated and real-time connected game developed to date,” said Raphael Poplock, Vice President, Games and Partnerships at ESPN. “We’re excited to continue our collaboration with Playdom in the development of sports-themed social games that reach a broad audience of both casual and passionate fans.”
“Every sports fan dreams of one day owning their own sports bar and grill to host their friends for the big game, and now is their chance,” said Michael Rubinelli, Playdom’s VP Studio Operations. “With ESPN Sports Bar & Grill, we’re giving players the opportunity to live out a sports fan’s fantasy.”
Facebook users can open their ESPN Sports Bar & Grill at: https://apps.facebook.com/espnsportsbar/.
For images, click here.
About ESPN Games
ESPN has a significant presence in the gaming space across multiple platforms. It signed a major distribution deal with Microsoft in 2010 to deliver ESPN on Xbox LIVE, with live events from ESPN3.com, video on demand clips from ESPN.com and more to the Xbox LIVE platform on Xbox 360 consoles. In the same year, ESPN collaborated with Playdom — a leading developer of social games – which marked ESPN’s debut in the social gaming space. It launched its first title, ESPNU College Town, to Facebook users in September. ESPN.com’s casual games destination, ESPN Arcade, also reaches a highly engaged audience, with average daily unique visitors up 64% and visits up 63%, according to Adobe/Omniture.
ESPN’s long-standing relationship with EA produces deep brand integrations into console gaming titles such as EA NCAA Basketball 10 and EA NCAA Football 11. Additionally, the relationship this year produced the biggest ESPN poll vote ever for the Madden NFL 12 cover vote, logging a record 12.7 million fan votes in an unprecedented campaign with ESPN.com and SportsNation. The Emmy award-winning EA Virtual Playbook also most recently extended to the World Cup 2010. And during the 2010 World Series, ESPN Baseball Tonight introduced new in-studio technology for Virtual Pitch developed in collaboration with Sony and their MLB The Show title for PlayStation 3 consoles.
About Playdom
Playdom, the social games product group of Disney Interactive Media Group, produces a diverse portfolio of casual games for the rapidly-growing platform of social networks. Playdom’s hugely popular properties, including, Gardens of Time, Sorority Life, Mobsters, and City of Wonder support approximately 50 million monthly users on Facebook, MySpace and international social networks.
Disney Interactive Media Group is the interactive entertainment affiliate of The Walt Disney Company (NSYE: DIS).
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