A personalized video game is created for one specific player or a group of players usually as a luxury gift, similar to personalized books. It features real names, places and events from the recipient's life. Usual occasions for such games are birthdays, anniversaries, and engagement proposals.
Personalized video games were given as luxury gifts almost from the beginning of the game industry. A recent famous example includes a game given in 2002 by Kevin Smith to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. In the game Lopez has to find and rescue Affleck, who has been kidnapped. [1]
One of the first professional personalized video games service was created by Abdel Bounane in 2011 and was called Amuze Me. [2] The costs of one game could run up to $67,000. [3] “Amuse Me makes personalized games in one’s image, like having your portrait made by a painter,” said Florent Deloison, one of the service's game artists.
In 2014, Netherlands-based developer TinglyGames launched its Greeting Games, an online program that lets users customize and send casual games within digital greeting cards. [4] Unlike Amuse Me, TinglyGames worked as a self-service and the games were not hand-made.
In 2020, polish developer Gift Games Studio started creating personalized video games in Poland. [5] Cheap personalized video games services are also offered by freelance game developers on marketplaces such as Fiverr.
A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or other holidays, such as Halloween, they are also sent to convey thanks or express other feelings.
An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common forms of electronic games, including handheld electronic games, standalone arcade game systems, and exclusively non-visual products.
Bradley R. Wardell is an American businessman, programmer, author and AI engineer. He is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of Stardock, a software development and computer games company.
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Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is an adventure video game developed by Vanpool and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console. It was released in Japan in September 2006, and in Europe in September 2007.
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My Monopoly is a service offered to citizens of the United Kingdom by the company Hasbro. The service was designed to allow a user of the My Monopoly website to create a personalized Monopoly game set, which can then be ordered and made for that person. The service was developed by Monitor Media Ltd and introduced in 2002. There were two versions of My Monopoly: the Traditional version; and the Here and Now version, which was introduced in 2005 and discontinued in 2006.
Someecards.com is a free online e-cards service created by Brook Lundy and Duncan Mitchell. The content of Someecards consists of parodies of the sentiments found in the traditional Hallmark greeting card, sometimes features content that could be considered offensive if taken seriously. Someecard's deadpan humor has drawn widespread approval from those for whom traditional greeting and Ecards do not appeal, especially younger urban audiences. The cards are divided into many categories, including events for which one might send a real greeting card, such as birthdays, weddings, and holidays. The categories also contain cards for unusual occasions, such as after a breakup, to flirt, and as a "cry for help". Compete.com reported that Someecards.com received over 570,000 visitors in October 2011.
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Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enabling the publisher to gain additional revenue from a title after it has been purchased, often using some type of microtransaction system.
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Bennifer and Bennifer 2.0 are the names given by the media to the high-profile relationship between American actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck and American singer Jennifer Lopez. The pair had a widely publicized 18-month romance from 2002 to 2004, and were engaged to be married. After their breakup, they maintained a friendship. They rekindled their romantic relationship in early 2021 and got married in July 2022. However, Lopez filed for divorce after only two years, on August 20, 2024. They have starred in two films together, Gigli (2003) and Jersey Girl (2004), and appeared in two music videos together, "Jenny from the Block" (2002) and "Marry Me" (2022).
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