iPhone racing game goes free with sponsorship from Volkswagen.
Australian games firm Firemint is now best known for its Flight Control iPhone game, which passed the 1.5 million download mark in September, and has spawned an entire genre of 'line-drawing' games.
However, the company's other big iPhone franchise is Real Racing, a beautiful 3D racing game with innovative social features. Now the company has secured sponsorship from Volkswagen for a free version: Real Racing GTI.
As the name implies, it's focused around one car: the new 2010 edition of the Volkswagen GTI. The car-maker has signed up to sponsor the game, which includes one track and a selection of six 2010 GTI cars to race.
There is also a dedicated online championship - the GTI Cup - for players to race in.
Like the original, the game plays excellently. However, it's more interesting for business reasons. Securing sponsorship from Volkswagen is a great deal for Firemint, as it undercuts some of the cannibalisation risk in releasing a free version of a premium game - while also promoting the more fully-featured original.
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It's also an interesting move for Volkswagen, though, since it's a new relationship for the company. The previous two Volkswagen-sponsored iPhone games - Volkswagen Polo Challenge and Volkswagen Scirocco R 24H Challenge 3D - were both released by Fishlabs.
Free advergames have a distinctly patchy history on mobile, but the release of Real Racing GTI is another example of big brands stumping up to sponsor quality games. Will it sell more GTIs though? Answers on a postcard...
