HARLEEM, Holland, January 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Danish born Art of Crime is taking its flagship product Crimeville on its first global jump by expanding into the Benelux market with its new partner and industry guru Christian Batist, Sticky Factory (former Senior Vice President of Habbo Hotel, Sulake Corporation). With a browser based Massively Multiplayer Online game Crimeville for kids 6-13 years old and  full portfolio of additional product lines in a black box business configuration, Art of Crime is ready to take Crimeville global in 2012

"I'm completely blown away by Crimeville as a theme, from the play perspective and now also as a business opportunity. I believe that Crimeville can become a global brand, bigger than most of the successful online games today and I haven't seen a single online game company that has developed a total cross media strategy from scratch AND designed the whole platform for a cross media expansion BEFORE launch. In being so young in the market with good results, I believe, Crimeville can be a global phenomenon," says Christian Batist.

Ida Brinck-Lund, CEO of Art of Crime, adds: "This partnership means a lot to us.  Christian experienced first-hand the challenges Habbo's online world had from its birth to managing well over 300 Million registered users.  We'll be able to benefit from his experiences and present what next generation companies like us must develop to become really successful internationally. We've got a super in-house team and now amazing partners so we're ready to deliver. We believe the key to delivering this success is an immersive experience and by immersive we mean that our consumers can be dive into play whenever, wherever and on whatever. Christian gets this multi-platform vision which is vital as we've only launched a fraction of our trans-media portfolio and future vision."

Art of Crime is going for a reconstruction in the tween market by combining the world's most popular selling genre crime fiction with open-ended gameplay (like you find in Habbo) and case solving (depending on product line). The Crimevillains engage in crime-of-the-not-so-serious-kind-of-crime, meaning that no-one will lose their head (except as a matter of speaking) and no blood will be spilt (except perhaps from a leaking vampire). Their secret motives challenge conventional thinking and support the underlying message that: "Nobody is perfect - but who wants to be Nobody?"

More than the Massively Multiplayer Online game

Crimeville's first and biggest product today is a 2-d flash based virtual world where kids can meet and dress up, chat and solve (wacky) mysteries or pull (innocent) pranks themselves. It is a product aimed to reflect upon emotions and thoughts about ourselves as people - hopefully driving us all stop judging the book by its cover (or people by their jobtitles).

Crimeville is already more than an online game with a unique trading card game available today in Danish shops.  An augmented reality mobile evidence hunt game in real life is ready for launch in spring. To ensure a full trans-media connection (and to prepare for an ever changing future) Crimeville is also ready with a presold TV-series to Danish National Broadcasting Cooperation, a unique board game, iPad interactive mysteries, mischievous accessories and toys (with secret messages) and more. Art of Crime is poised for growth with the right partners.

Scandinavian tweens are opening their eyes to Crimeville

Crimeville is currently being embraced by Scandinavian tweens where 80.000 registered and hundreds are joining every day in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They aim to go from 'Clueless Collies' to 'Top Detective Dauwgs' in the hunt for cracking this week's detective cases.

"We've shown an ability to grow Crimeville in several countries with a very small team and a tight budget. We're reaching a small break even in marketing costs with two products and we're able to grow virally and retain our monthly users at a solid base while expanding the lifetime of our users month by month. We copy the German expansion methods where the monetisation metrics apply before expansion. Our next step is to create a big leverage, and when we reach this turning point we can grow really fast globally. Our current Average Revenue Per Paying User per month is high enough with just two products in the market, to make us believe our business approach can last longer than a viral flu in December. We aim for a small bump in the universe," grins Crimeville's founder Ida Brinck-Lund.

Crimeville  is built for a global reach

The global voyage begins by joining forces with the best partners possible. Christian Batist's knowledge in expanding the virtual world Habbo globally is the best possible partner Art of Crime could hope for and Christian Batist is just as happy:

"My team is devoted to making Crimeville a success in the Benelux market, whether it'll be marketing, localisation, community management, PR, cross media deals, distribution advertising sales, sponsorships or retail.  We are the right partner to work with Art of Crime and Crimeville and we very much look forward to taking this market place."

Art of Crime's plan is to go global in 2012 and is looking for more great partners (and valuable sustainable long term growth).

"We see old business models dying, but there are a range of new ones surfacing. We believe the future lies in breaking existing value chains in order to create new business models, because tweens don't differentiate between platforms and nor should we as companies. Having an expert like Christian Batist agreeing with this is huge, because he has a history of being at the right time and the right place," says Ida Brinck-Lund, Founder and CEO at Art of Crime ApS.

Facts

ABOUT ART OF CRIME AND TEAM:

The Danish company was founded in November 2008. An investment groups including founder, has invested 2,4M Euro so far in developing the Trans media portfolio of Crimeville.

The first year, 2009, company managed to design a universe and a Trans media asset base prepared for transition to multiple platforms. This meant planning how graphical design should be vectorized, over 40 characters should fit onto different screen sizes and how storytelling and game plays shift media platforms. In 2010 Crimeville launched a BETA version MMO with over 9 genres and 20 game plays and a trading card game in Denmark. In July 2011 the MMO went live in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Team behind Art of Crime have a history from the following companies priori to Art of Crime: LEGO, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, A-film, Titoonic and more.

About CEO and founder Ida Brinck-Lund:

Ida is currently co-owner of Art of Crime ApS, 38 years old, married and with a ten year old daughter. Prior to this company she's been an entrepreneur in 2002, coming from the established media world of Children's TV, Youth Radio and Magazines in Denmark (DR TV, TV2, Chili Media etc.). The urge to rethink business models and content for the future drove her and her partner then to create mobile games, TV animations with a twist etc. from 2002 to 2008 including consultancy, PR, marketing and creative work for Disney Channel, Oxygen Magasiner etc.. The idea of a fully branded universe has grown through many stages in her life - leading to the birth of the current Trans media company Art of Crime which was founded in December 2008. Ida is renowned for breaking doors open with her entrepreneurship, her passion for joining forces with great talents and a hurricane sized laugh.

For more information go visit http://www.artofcrime.com  or go to http://www.Crimeville.com.

About Sticky Factory, CEO and founder Christian Batist:

Christian Batist is currently owner of Sticky Factory; he is 40 years old, married, and has a 1-year old son. With Sticky Factory Christian helps brands and companies develop and/or deploy their online game and virtual world strategies. Christian works with some of the most successful virtual world companies, such as Stardoll, Woozworld, Jagex, Weeworld, Mamba Nation and Nickelodeon.

Prior to starting Sticky Factory, Christian worked for Habbo Hotel (Sulake Corporation) for 6 years, most recently in the role of Senior Vice President of Marketing, but also responsible for Advertising Sales, Community Management and Monetization. Virtual world economies have no secrets for Christian. Before joining Habbo, Christian spent 5 years with the largest media company of The Netherlands, Telegraaf Media Group, as Internet Publisher. Even earlier Christian has helped over 150 small and medium sized businesses developed Internet strategies and roll out websites, intranet environments and e-commerce applications. For many clients these were the first moves in the digital landscape. Christian's knowledge of the digital space is so vast in all aspects that he is an expert to be reckoned with, breaking doors to the established industry while making everyone feel secure and great at the same time.

ABOUT CRIMEVILLE'S PORTFOLIO:

MMO

(Massively Multiplayer Online game) - also called virtual worlds or a shared realtime experience

Create an avatar and become a Crimevillain in this smallville with a vast amount of cityscapes.

Nine genres of gameplay from quests, case-solving to micro-games to multiplayer games. More than 50 games. Ongoing expansion in both genres and games

40 Crimevillains inhabit Crimeville's Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO) plus 80.000 Scandinavian Crimevillains - an exceptional high number compared to the size of the marketing campaigns (as of January 2012). Hundreds of new users joining every day in Scandinavia alone, proving a strong viral effect on top of campaigns and a competitive retention,  Average Revenue Per Paying Users and other key metrics.

Localised in: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, English and now Dutch.

Launched in: Sweden, Norway, Denmark.

Future plans: a Crimeville 2.0 including user generated content, multiplayer games.

TRADING CARDS

Wacky roleplaying mysteries on collectible trading cards with an additional point game. Family inclusive. Ties into the MMO with characters and codes.

Localised and launched in: in Danish + 200 outlets. Currently Norwegians are also buying.

Future plans: connectivity to online, mobile, virtual collectability and more gameplays.

MOBILE

Mobile Augmented Reality Game: Hunt for evidence in real life! Outdoors fun. Ties into the MMO with codes.

First launch in: English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish

OTHERS:

Clothing. Mischievous accessories and clothes as a media - with a secret twist.

Board Game: Trade, collect and barder you way to mystery solving in a unique family focused game. Ties into the universe with collectible purchasable mystery cards.

Developed:

Crimeville TV series with 14 written scripts that's already sold to Danish TV, characters, scenes etc.

In Development:

More mobile, iPad and lots of other secret device game plays that we could tell you about, but we won't!

Please feel free to contact the CEO and Founder: Ida Brinck-Lund directly at mobile +45-26-713-413

Please feel free to contact CEO and founder of Sticky Factory: Christian Batist at christian@stickyfactory.nl or on his mobile: +31-6-2266-0546

SOURCE Art of Crime ApS