On Thursday 14th July we released the Southern Rail Tycoon game – in response to passenger protests about Southern rail cancellations – to prove the value of news-based games as a form of social currency.

The team announced the game on twitter with only a dozen tweets and – in one week – it had been played over 181,000 times by 79,000 people, with the average game session 1.52 minutes long. Astonishingly the bounce rate was only 7.62%.

Due to the game harnessing a moment in time – the resignation of the Rail Minister, the ‘sinkhole’ affecting London Bridge and closure of Brighton station – it scaled organically across 19 major news outlets.

Coverage included the BBC, Daily Mail, The Sun, Radio 4, Evening Standard, Eurogamer and Wired, bringing attention to a broader audience of circa 450,000.

The web browser game (on desktop and mobile) harnessed political and economic factors of Southern cancelling 341 daily services with a reduced timetable. The satirical game allows people to assume the role of a rail tycoon and block guards from boarding trains in order to cancel them.

The game mechanic therefore highlights the fact only £26m of a total £107m received by the UK’s rail operators from the Government was passed onto commuters.

As consumers move to short-form content (Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest etc.) and games drive social interaction (Pokémon Go the most prominent example) the power of reactive and shareable games presents a number of benefits for brands if executed properly.