Branded Games & Arcades

CUSTOM VIDEO GAMES FOR BRAND ACTIVATIONS

Aether Immersive designs and builds custom video games for brand activations and live events: short, two-player arcade games made from your brand's own characters and art, running on real arcade stations with a live leaderboard that turns play into raffle entries and email sign-ups. Built in Baltimore, deployed anywhere.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Most activations are walked past. A game is the one thing people line up to stay in.

A photo wall gets a few seconds. A guest who picks up a controller has decided to spend the next minute inside your brand, and a good game makes them want the minute after that. Custom games turn your characters and art into the place guests play, and a live leaderboard turns a room of strangers into one competition with your name on the scoreboard.

For Evermore Cannabis Company's Cloud Lounge at Halloween at the Maryland Science Center, we built ten original two-player games from Owen Murphy's art, ran them on stacks of vintage CRT televisions, and sent every score live to a sign above the stage. Guests played 1,362 games in one night, and the top score in each game fed Evermore's prize raffle and mailing list. We wrote up what made it work in custom video games as a brand activation.

WHAT WE BUILD

Branded Arcades

A set of original games built around your brand's characters and art, played on dedicated stations. For Evermore's Cloud Lounge we built ten, played 1,362 times in one night.

Live Leaderboards & Signs

Every station reports scores to a shared big-screen leaderboard, so a high score in the corner of the room is on the sign seconds later, with the player's name on it.

Raffles & Lead Capture

Scores feed a prize draw, and high scorers can leave an email on the spot to hear if they won. Sign-ups come from people who chose to play, not from a form at the door.

Retro CRT Installations

Games built for vintage CRT televisions, stacked into a set piece that reads as an arcade from across the room and doubles as scenic design.

Head-to-Head Play

Two players per screen in every game: double the throughput per station, and a match the line can watch while it waits.

Web & Kiosk Builds

The same games can ship as a kiosk build for unattended stations or a web build for phones and a campaign landing page.

WHY AETHER FOR GAMES

Game design, hardware, and the room around it, from one team.

A branded game is only as good as the night it runs. We design the games, build the stations that boot straight into them and recover without staff, run the leaderboard on our own network, and build the room around them: projection, scenic and show control. The team that made the games is the team on site.

SELECTED WORK

Games & interactive projects

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Evermore Cloud Lounge

BRAND ACTIVATION

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GLASS CRANE VR GALLERY

VR ART GALLERY

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ICESat-2 Touchscreen Installation

INTERACTIVE KIOSK

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Chris Dyer VR Experience

VIRTUAL REALITY

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a custom video game brand activation?

A set of games designed around a brand's own characters, art and story, built for a specific event and played on site. Unlike a sponsored placement inside someone else's game, the whole world belongs to the brand, so every minute of play is brand exposure guests choose for themselves.

How long is a round, and how many games should an activation have?

Event games should be understood in five seconds and last about a minute. At the Evermore Cloud Lounge the average game lasted 45 seconds. Several short games spread a crowd across stations and give repeat players a reason to come back; we built ten for one night.

How do branded games collect leads?

Through the leaderboard. When a guest sets a high score, the screen asks for an email so they can hear if they won the prize draw. The guest has already engaged and won something, so the ask feels earned. At the Cloud Lounge about a quarter of the high scorers who were asked left an email.

Do the games need internet at the venue?

No. We run the stations and the leaderboard on our own private network, so nothing depends on venue Wi-Fi. Each station also keeps a local scoreboard and catches the leaderboard up if the connection drops.

What hardware do the games run on?

A screen, a small computer and a controller per station, plus one machine for the shared leaderboard and sign. We build on Raspberry Pi kiosks with classic two-button pads and can drive anything from vintage CRT televisions to modern displays.

Can you work with our artist or our existing characters?

Yes, and it is the best way to do it. The Cloud Arcade was built entirely from Owen Murphy's drawings for One Drop Design Studio. We prepare the artist's masters for the target screens so their line work survives, and the artist and brand are credited in the games.

Can regulated brands run a game activation?

Yes, with the rules built in from the first draft. For a cannabis brand we put the required age and compliance line on every title, menu and sign screen, filtered player names, and kept the prize draw and email wording to the client's approved copy.

Want an arcade built for your brand?

Send the event, the date, and the characters or art you want people playing with. We'll come back with game concepts and a real budget.

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