The mobile gaming hit Merge Mansion has caught attention for its twisting plot involving a grandmother’s secrets, and now that grandmother will be brought to life by Kathy Bates. The game is known for its ads, which caught gamers off-guard with their twist on what looked to be just a simple game about renovating an old mansion. With this announcement, the twists keep coming.
Mobile games aren’t new to celebrity endorsements and partnerships—Lady Gaga teamed up with Words With Friends recently—and getting celebrities involved can be a great way to market a game. Merge Mansion has been doing pretty well on its own, though, with its ads featuring a woman who moves into her grandmother’s mansion after her wedding falls through and her house burns down, only to find that her grandmother is hiding some dark secrets. One part match-three game, another part murder mystery, Merge Mansion definitely sets itself apart from many other mobile games with its unique marketing.
That marketing has paid off, too: Merge Mansion has over 10 million s and made over $38 million in less than a year after its release. At that pace, it may soon rank among the highest-grossing mobile games. Now, a new press release about the game announces that Kathy Bates will be portraying the grandmother, Ursula, in a series of live-action ads for Merge Mansion. Bates expressed her excitement, saying, “Ursula and I fit like a pair of beloved old garden gloves! Thank you Merge Mansion for inviting me to play.” She went on to praise the game’s style, connecting Ursula’s taste in décor to her own experience in art school. The press release likened Bates’ portrayal of Ursula to one of her characters on American Horror Story, in which Bates has starred for four different seasons.
As games grow more and more popular, the marketing teams look for better ways to attract attention and make their games stand out. Bringing in celebrities—even if only in ads and not in the game itself, as is the case here—has proven helpful in the past. While not every celebrity gets as invested as others—Keanu Reeves seems delighted that Cyberpunk 2077 players want to romance him—there’s no denying that just knowing that someone as prominent and respected as Kathy Bates is interested in Merge Mansion is likely to get more gamers to give the game a chance.
Merge Mansion already had a wild ad campaign with the animated shorts that have spread online, but this new live-action collaboration with Kathy Bates is on a whole other level. Mobile game World of Tanks managed to get Arnold Schwarzenegger on board for their 2022 event, so it seems like the sky’s the limit for what is possible in the partnership between celebrities and the gaming industry. Maybe Merge Mansion will be the next big hit in mobile gaming now thanks to this new ad campaign. Gamers will get to see for themselves how it goes when the live-action ads release.
Source: Merge Mansion/YouTube