Vergence Elects to Lead the Pack During Presidential Race

GLENDALE, CA – Until 2008, social networking had never played a prominent role in any election. Yet, because of the strong involvement of Facebook and Twitter, political thoughts are now streaming everywhere.

And Vergence Entertainment is right up there in the thick of things.

While Twitter had live feeds of political viewpoints pouring in from all over the world and Facebook was the first to take Presidential polls before voting began, Vergence has pioneered an undiscovered avenue of social networking by creating Ringorang, the 24-hour trivia game that plays you five days a week.

Simple, yet revolutionary, Ringorang is changing the face of trivia by taking what’s going on in the world and placing it in front of people in the form of a trivia game that takes place every hour. So instead of providing an outlet for real-time opinions, Ringorang is asking questions about up-to-the-minute topics.

Made possible by the creation of R-TIME (Real-Time Immediated Mass Engagement), Vergence Entertainment’s proprietary technology enables Ringorang to send a question, simultaneously, to everyone who’s subscribed to “the Ringoverse,” which is the name of Ringorang’s network of players.

With this type of technology, Ringorang has been changing the lives (and schedules) of players everywhere.

“Since I know there’s going to be one question each hour, I find myself changing my schedule to play the game,” said über-player extraordinaire, Justin Barr (known in the Ringoverse as jivebotic). “If it’s 12:35 and I haven’t received a question yet, I know that there will be one within the next 25 minutes - so I’ll wait to go get lunch until after that question comes. If the question comes at 8:05, I know I have at least 55 minutes to run to the store, grab a coffee, whatever without missing a question.”

Which means, Ringorang isn’t the type of game that sits idly, waiting for you to play. Instead, it’s the type of game that plays you.

Election 08 Campaign Wordcloud Project at Brooklynartproject.com. The images show the most frequently used 100 words from the candidates at that moment in time. The more often a word is used, the larger it appears. Above: John McCain; Below: Barack Obama

It’s also the type of game that’s thematically driven and categorically ever-changing. But whatever you do, don’t confuse Ringorang with a web-based version of Scattergories.

Unless you’re prepared to be mislead.

Ringorang’s categories feature topics and events that reference the calendar year, which is used to spark interest among players and remain, well, topical year ‘round. For instance, the game ringorangin the New Year with the “2008 Year in Review,” and even jumped onto the red carpet with an Oscar’s themed game that was the grandiose of cinema, “The Red Carpet Rangle.”

Also, throughout the Beijing Summer Games, Ringorang unveiled the Ringolympics.

And now, in this most important part of our year (and future, perhaps), Ringorang has adopted the theme of this year’s election. Dubbed Decision ’08, the category and artwork encapsulates issues surrounding the 2008 Presidential campaign.

When it comes to dreaming up and designing the themes, Dreamentia Creative Laboratories, who has been one of Ringorang’s key contributors since its early stages, works with Vergence to conceptualize the game, and then designs and tailors the game based on the final theme. Once the designs have been approved, they’re sent to JLoop, a full-service Rich Media company based in Long Beach, CA, where they are executed and brought to glorious techni-webilicious life. JLoop joined the Ringorang team in the Fall of 2008, adding their expertise in both interactive user experience as well as architecting the mechanics of the project.

Revolutionary election, meet the most revolutionary trivia game the world has ever seen.