subject: Transparency In ESPNU College Town,tauntr.com [print this page] Transparency In ESPNU College Town Transparency In ESPNU College Town
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Posted By admin 11:25 AM
ESPN on Tuesday launched its first social media game, ESPNU College Town. College Town, which was created by social games product group Playdom, is live and can now be played on Facebook.
We sampled the game for a while yesterday morning to get familiar with the product. Essentially, you get to run your own visual college campus while attempting to build an elite athletic program. You can even serve as the school's athletic director. Given all of the recruiting scandals in college sports lately, we were curious to see if the game would highlight on some of the shadier side of big-time college sports.
We were not dissapointed with how transparent and realistc College Town actually is.
Here are some screen grabs that illustrate the point.
Recruiting: You really have to budget your coins efficiently, so splurging on the top QB recruit--like Peter Hirst, who is asking for a lot--might not be the best use of resources. Plus, there are consequences for bribing recruits, which come back to haunt you later in the game.
Bulding the campus: A key component to College Town is building a campus. Here, of course, you are encouraged to destroy buildings like Art School, which is taking up space that can be used for valuable sports facilities. Like, say, an extra warehouse to store old tackling dummies. Or perhaps a new press box for the football field. Use your savings wisely.
On the flip side, you can also build important new buildings. Here, user mleach1 is adding an important building to his campus.
Recruiting hostesses: In addition to spending coins on athletes, you can also purchase recruiting hostesses. As the University of Tennessee can attest, having hostesses can prove to be invaluable. Plus, the hostesses run cheap in the game.
Punishments: Be careful with how you run your campus and athletic program, however. There are severe punishments in the game for violating rules.
Tempatations: Despite the harsh punishments handed down in College Town, you still will struggle to get ahead if you do not skate the rules a bit. And you will be presented with some tough compliance temptations. But be careful.
Go play for yourself here. See how well you do. And, while you are at it, become a fan of TAUNTR on Facebook, too.
