MonkeyBarTV (www.monkeybarTV.com)
© 2008 Hasbro, Inc.
Habro's MonkeybarTV (http://www.hasbro.com/monkeybartv) is a well-designed, highly commercialized Internet flytrap, designed to lure young boys into a sticky collection of 160+ arcade-style games. There are also comics and videos; the latter consisting of videos of Hasbro-sponsored cartoons such as Transformers, or repurposed TV commercials for Hasbro toys. At the bottom of the screens are related toys and a link to the shopping cart for The Littlest Pet Shop, Nerf, Star Wars, Spider-Man, GI Joe, Transformers, Monopoly, Super Soaker and others. The games load quickly and are generally hard to stop playing. They may have levels or are timed, so you're left with the need to try for a better score. The "high score" way of thinking has been combined with a contest that was of interest to the testers. A weekly Top 100 Tournament teases kids with "someone's going to win. Why not you?" If your name gets into the Top 10 List, you could win a Hasbro toy. But in the prize showcase, each "prize" has a "buy it" button. Because your scores are in the 10s of thousands, children think they have the best score, which makes them want to enter the tournament. It's the online equivalent of a midway trick, where they give you a heavy looking hammer to make you think you're stronger than you actually are, along with messages like, "How super is your score?", and "Keep playing to raise your score". You can put together jigsaw puzzles made from photos of toys (with three levels), or try to outguess the computer in a game of Battleship. The Super Soaker Tag Elite game consists of a virtual shooting gallery with your choice of types of Super Soakers (canon-sized squirt guns). The goal is to shoot other computer-controlled kids before they soak you, and you loose points if you shoot the other kids in the face. At the bottom of the screen are the TV commercials, toy demos, and a "Buy Now" link to either a wish list or a shopping cart, where you can order your own Super Soaker AquaShock Secret Strike for $15. This site goes a step beyond basic catalog-like techniques, with a contest and a downloadable program, called a Branded Desktop Application (BDA). The program, called the MonkeyBarTV Communicator is advertised with the prompt "Get the Latest Games and Videos On Your Desktop." If children click on this icon, they are taken to an information screen that promises that you can "see all the new games, videos, and comics available from MonkeyBar TV! All on your desktop." Clicking Download Now causes a 1.2 MB file called the MonkeyBarTV Communicator to show up on your desktop. If you scroll through the Terms Of Use, you learn that the file is managed by www.adtoolsinc.com, using OTOLabs Technology, which collects "anonymous information." According to the company's website (http://www.thinkdesktop.com), "a Branded Desktop Application (BDA) is a fully customizable program that runs directly from a customer's computer, eliminating the need for browsers or e-mail to receive information and updates." The company also lists Nick.com as a client, for their "LaunchPad Communicator." We can tell you that the next time we restarted the computer, there was a new pop-up, called a toaster, in the toolbar, advising us of the "feature of the week" and a prompt to "Watch this week's line-up!" Uninstalling the program was a straightforward process. Whether MonkeyBarTV is more of a toy catalog 2.0 or merely a collection of fun games, depends on whether you take the perspective of the publisher or the child. But there's no doubt that the games are fun, and the toys aren't free.
Internet Site, Windows, Mac OSX
Teaches: some logic
CTR Rating: 72%