Nickelodeon's new awards show for casual gaming has an interesting though appropriate twist for these short 'n' sweet games we all love. The AddictingGames Showdown will air June 27th during Nick's nightly line-up in short segments that will run to about a minute or 90 seconds. Paramount, whose newest film Transformers: Rise of the Fallen has already blasted the box office since opening Thursday night at midnight, is one of the sponsors, along with Razor scooters and Wizards 101. AddictingGames.com is a website that offers gamers a wide variety of online games to choose from, as well as user-generated reviews, tips, cheats, and more on its blog.
The AddictingGames Showdown micro-site gives gamers the opportunity to vote in award categories like Most AddictingGame, Best Performance by a Monkey, Most Courageous Stick Figure Stunt, Great Escape Game, Best Game from Planet Random, and Your Mom's Favorite Game. You can play the nominees from the AddictingGames Showndown site before you vote, as well.
The category for Best Performance by a Robot is sponsored by Transformers, and AddictingGames also features an online mini-game called The Megatron Face-Off as another Paramount tie-in. Additionally, the winners will be announced at the same time on the AddictingGames Showdown micro-site as on TV, offering Nickelodeon's partners an extra boost to its advertising package.
The show will be hosted by iCarly's Jerry Trainer and Keke Palmer from True Jackson, VP; the final awards will be given out during episodes of iCarly and True Jackson, VP.
The site also offers users the opportunity to automatically share their favorite games on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
It's possible that if this experiment works well for the network, it may become a full-length awards show or offer other opportunities in the casual gaming arena. According to Nelson Boyce, Senior VP of online ad sales, Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group, "Just given the kind of traction casual games are getting with this audience, there are any number of scenarios to explore."
