Hooked Media and Best Buy team up and host a new Android game developers contest.

Hooked Media Teams with Best Buy to Launch Android Game Development Contest

Developer Contest, in Partnership with Best Buy, Trinity Ventures and VentureBeat, Aims to Help Android Game Developers Gain Wide Scale Distribution

San Francisco, CA, December 13, 2011 – With hundreds of thousands of apps currently in the Android Marketplace, it can be difficult for game developers to break through the clutter and have their games seen by the public.  To help developers gain exposure, Hooked Media has  announced the launch of "Get Discovered!" - a worldwide competition for Android game developers that gives them a unique chance to win both wide scale distribution through Best Buy's App Discovery Center and seed funding from Trinity Ventures, a top Silicon Valley venture capital firm. The winner will also receive an online advertisement package from VentureBeat, one of the industry's most widely-read blogs.

"The Android Marketplace has a wide array of undiscovered content and we are proud to team with Best Buy, Trinity Venture and VentureBeat to provide developers with a new way of reaching a wider audience," said Prita Uppal, CEO of Hooked Media Group.  "Every developer that enters the contest will have their games integrated into our platform, which will allow consumers to more easily find their content, so every developer that enters will gain exposure and potential installs."

Get Discovered! Contest Details

The Get Discovered! competition is open to all game developers, who will first submit their games by integrating with Hooked Media's new discovery platform at http://www.hookedmediagroup.com/contest.  During the first phase of the competition the platform will track metrics including user rating, play-time and installations based on recommendations. The metrics will be used to determine the finalists. The judges will analyze finalists that graduate from the online competition.  The contest will feature two tracks – one for companies that have secured Series A financing and one for companies still seeking Series A financing.

Judging the final competition will be Bradley Horowitz, VP of Product, Google+; Gus Tai, General Partner at Trinity Ventures; Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat; and Margita Labhard, Director of Digital Business Models at Best Buy.

Every game entered into the contest will use Hooked Media Groups' SDK and be integrated into the recently launched Hooked App, which is available for free in the Android Marketplace. The app is a game recommendation and discovery platform that uses a proprietary algorithm to learn a users’ gaming preferences, game play statistics and social mapping to provide them with personalized game recommendations and advanced search features.  The more games a user ranks, the more customized the recommendations will become, thus providing the users with introductions to games that they may have never been exposed to, including those from smaller developers whose games may have not received significant exposure.

Consumer can find the Hooked app in the Android Marketplace or at http://bit.ly/nrkqE0

Contest finalists will receive distribution from Best Buy, increased game downloads and plays, as well as recognition among top leaders in the game industry. Developers can submit their games between now and January 24th, 2012. Interested parties can obtain more information at http://www.hookedmediagroup.com/contest.

The Finals Event

The competition culminates in an event in March, 2012 hosted at Dolores Labs, an incubator space in the Mission district of San Francisco. The developers will be given the chance to pitch their games to the audience and judges. There will be a live evaluation of each game by the panelists of judges.  The event provides developers with a tremendous opportunity to meet, interact and network with some of the most influential names and companies in game and app development.  In addition, the event will be attended by respected VC firms, investors and advisors, providing finalist with another opportunity to help grow their companies and produce the best games possible.