Monday, September 12, 2005

Winner of the “100 million mission” on-line game

Text from Volkswagen AG.
Volkswagen Golf valued at over 20,000 Euro goes to Scandinavia

Wolfsburg, 12 September 2005 - Tero Patoranta from Finland is the winner of the Volkswagen brand on-line game. Players from all over the world produced over 87,000 virtual vehicles.


The 34-year old Finn Tero Patoranta is delighted with the new Volkswagen Golf he won in the “100 million mission” on-line game. The special thing about his prize is that he can configure his own vehicle from the equipment specifications applicable in his country. The total value of the vehicle is in excess of 20,000 Euro. The committed Volkswagen driver is looking forward to the second model from his favourite brand, having recently bought a Bora.

Tero Patoranta, his wife and two-year old son live in Huittinen, a small community with a population of 9,200. He works as a management consultant in the small town some 200 kilometres north west of the Finnish capital.

Gamers from 128 countries took up the challenge issued by Volkswagen to build as many virtual vehicles as possible. Together, they built 87,289 New Beetle, Golf and Passat. The most popular model was the Golf, accounting for half of the vehicles produced, and the most popular Golf colour was Tornado Red. Dark or subdued colours were the preference for the other two models. The gamers’ favourite colour for the Passat was Black, while the favourite for the New Beetle was Royal Navy.

The land of the reindeer, home of the on-line game winner, ranked 9th out of the 128 countries participating in the game. The list was headed by gamers from Germany, closely followed by Egypt. Mexico, where the player who built the largest number of vehicles lives (a total production figure of 352), came third. A user in Russia cracked the highscore for collecting points per production, scoring 383,328 points out of an ideal 499,410 per game.

Coinciding with the on-line game, Europe’s largest automaker also developed a mobile game of the same name with 3,061downloads. The classic racing game offers users a virtual chase in a realistic environment.

The computer game was developed to mark production of the 100 millionth vehicle bearing the VW badge. From the end of May to the end of August, players from all over the world applied their skill, speed and knowledge of auto production to master the game’s challenges and win a Golf.

Volkswagen is planning to integrate both games in www.zoon.com during the next few weeks and to make them available in the Zoon Center at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. The Zoon Center at the heart of the German capital city is the Volkswagen Autolounge for young people.