News 2002
Would you rather ...
11/01/2002
A: Bite the head off a live tarantula
Or
B: Thoroughly lick a cat's bum?
A: Discover that a neighbour has spent years video recording everything you have done in your bathroom
Or
B: Your bedroom?
Have you ever wondered whether you were in tune with other people's thinking when faced with a difficult dilemma or whether you're secretly a bit of a wierdo? Well, now's your chance to find out, without the shame, by playing Virgin Mobile's fun, near the knuckle mobile game, Zobmondo!!, launched today.
A game of outrageous choices from the States, Zobmondo!! is for adults only and pioneers completely new gaming territory. It is played by text message and is the latest in a range of mobile games available to every Virgin Mobile customer, which gives them the chance to have fun and win great prizes in the process.
The aim of the game is to find out if you are in touch with the thinking of fellow players and answer some close to the bone questions in the process! To play, you simply send a text message with the letter 'Z' to the number 2250, agree to the terms and conditions of the game by text message and then get ready to play. Mobile players are presented with ten challenges each one asking them to choose between two awkward situations. For example:
Would you rather...
A) Age only from the neck up?
Or
B) Age just from the neck down?
Once you've decided which option you'd rather choose, you must then estimate how many people out of 100 would agree with you. So, if you'd prefer to age from the neck up and thought that just over half (56 of the 100) would agree with your text message answer would be B and 56.
Players get presented with two dilemmas from each of the following categories: Food/Ingestion, Pain/Discomfort/Fear, Appearance/Embarrassment, Ethics/Intellect and Random. The faster and more accurate your guess is, the more points you score and the less you feel like a wierdo! Text messages cost 20p for each message sent while playing the game.
The top players each month are entered into the Virgin Mobile Zobmondo!! Hall of Fame, with the top five players winning a stylish Motorola V66 phone worth £349.99. The worst scoring five players will be sent a Magic 8 ball, a novel decision making device, that will hopefully give them a helping hand!
Steven Day, corporate affairs director at Virgin Mobile, said "This is a great game to play by yourself on the train or in a group at the pub - if you're brave enough! We're sure that Zobmondo!! will go down as well with our customers as it has done in our office. We've found out some very strange things about our colleagues when we were testing this game!"
Mobile users who can't get enough of gaming on their mobile can also brush up on their general knowledge by playing Trivial Pursuit, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? or test their footie knowledge with UEFA Champions League quiz. These games are just some of the fun features you get from Virgin Mobile, and sit within VirginXtras - a unique range of services only available to Virgin Mobile customers.
Virgin Mobile makes owning a mobile phone simple and affordable. There are no hidden costs - you only pay for the calls you make, and you own your handset straight off. There's no contract to sign or monthly line rental to pay and one simple tariff means calls are about the cheapest around: 15p a minute for the first 5 minutes of use each day, then only 5p a minute after that. Virgin Mobile's tariff also comes with a Big Bonus which rewards high spenders - anyone registered for the Big Bonus who spends £30 or more on calls in a month gets 10% worth of airtime credit the following month.
-ends-
Notes to Editors
Players must be aged 16 or over to play Zobmondo
Zobmondo is one of a range of games brought to Virgin Mobile by Motorola.
Virgin Mobile and Motorola have now launched 4 games together:
- Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
- Trivial Pursuit
- UEFA Champions League Quiz
- Zobmondo!!
For further information please contact:
Press office on 0845 600 6272 or pressoffice@virginmobile.com
Alison Bonny - 07802 430 276
Joanne Baker - 07941 233300
Steven Day - 07931 777777
Consolidated Communications
Sasha Bradbury - 0207 208 2708
Jo Cotton - 0207 208 2352
About Virgin Mobile:
Virgin Mobile is now established as the most successful virtual network operator in the world, and is the UK's fifth network. Since its launch in November 1999 it has attracted nearly 1.5 million customers, making it one of the fastest growing mobile phone companies in history.
Virgin Mobile is a 50:50 joint venture company between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Deutsche Telekom's One 2 One, and is the UK's first mobile virtual operator.
It has scored a number of firsts, including being the first operator to scrap peak rate calls, introduce a daily discounting tariff, the first company in the world to introduce an integrated MP3 mobile phone and the first company to offer all of its customers a content-rich voice portal with the launch of its 4321 service.
In the UK, Virgin Mobile phones are available direct on 0845 6000 600; on the web at www.virgin.com/mobile; or on the High Street at over 5,000 outlets including Virgin Megastore, Our Price, V.SHOP, Sainsbury, Tesco, WH Smith, Co-op, Asda, Somerfield, John Lewis, Littlewoods, Morrisons, Argos, Phone People, The Link, Dixons and Carphone Warehouse.
