Global gameplan

• Josh Mehlman
• 1 February 2010
• Page 1 of 3 : single page

Photo credit: Anthony Geernaert, styling by Emma Elizabeth Coffey

Husband-and-wife team Peter and Nicole Lander invented Battlefield Live - a live action re-enactment of popular computer games that does away with painful paintballs and improves on laser tag, because it can be played outside. They now export the technology and business model to 33 countries around the world. Josh Mehlman speaks to Nicole about how she uses every available online channel to tell the company's story and how she manages to speak to many audiences in their own voices.

She might work in a testosterone-soaked industry, but it's fair to say that if Nicole Lander were a character in the 1984 comedy Revenge of the Nerds, she would not be one of the jocks.

She played Dungeons and Dragons at school and shifted to multi-user dungeons - text-based precursors to today's online gaming - when the internet came into widespread use. She earned postgraduate qualifications in computer-mediated communications, studying how artificial intelligence computer systems could take on human-like personalities. Online, she goes by the nom de guerre of Zev-va. And she still plays lots of computer games.

"My favourite one is Civilization, where you get to take over the world," she says.

Lock and load

Lander's company, Battlefield Sports, started out as a hobby. Battlefield Live, the sport she and her husband Peter invented, uses guns based on infrared technology - safer than lasers and less painful than paintballs - in an outdoor setting.

"There were some boffins in England who called themselves the South London Warlords, who originally wrote the software to go in the gaming guns," she says.

"We sponsored one of those scientists with a 457 visa to come out to Australia and work with us.

"We started our first Battlefield in 1999 and more and more people came, so I put up a website. People from all over the planet emailed us and said, ‘Hey, what you're doing looks really fun, can we do it, too?"

“We started our first battlefield in 1999 and more and more people came so I put up a website. People from all over the planet emailed us and said ‘Hey, what you’re doing looks fun, can we do it too?’” After two years of business, the Landers started manufacturing their own gaming guns and licensing the concept to franchisees; ‘Battlefield owners' is Lander's preferred term. A year later, the first overseas Battlefield opened in the United States. There are now Battlefields in 33 countries.

The UK is currently the biggest export market, followed by the US, Spain, France and Portugal.

"They are very civilised in the UK, they love playing combat games and not getting bruised," she says.

"Even though it rains a lot over there, they're quite outdoorsy. Paintball is also very popular over there and we've sold to a lot of fields who want to complement their operation, because they can't have young children playing on the field."

Broadcasting on all channels

From the outset, the web was Battlefield Sports's main channel for getting the message out to potential Battlefield owners and fans around the world.

The company's online empire now spans seven websites, a Facebook fan page, Twitter, a blog, a MySpace page and dozens of online video clips.

"Our whole business is about the gamers; they're the ones who make the entertainment happen," Lander says. "Instead of going to the movies and having a vicarious experience, if they're engaged, they'll have a better entertainment experience.

"There are two tiers to my audience: the Battlefield owners and the gamers. I write for both. I see my role as a storyteller. I tell them how fun it is through the medium of our websites."

Reflecting this split, the company has two main sites: a corporate site for existing and potential Battlefield owners (battlefieldsports.com) and a military-themed site for fans (battlefieldlive.com).

Working across multiple online media can be time consuming, although lately Lander has worked on interconnecting the various channels so that if she posts on the blog, for example, Twitter and Facebook are instantly updated.

Even with automation, Lander estimates she spends at least an hour a day on social media, but "the more interactions we can have with fans, the better".

"I think it's about energy in, energy out. The more excitement you put out to people, they give that back to you.

"I love telling people stories and selling. I think of it as a game. The more sales we make, the more stories we tell, the more people who love our stuff - that is winning the game. It's just like Civilization, you start with a little village and build up to a city and go out and make more cities and take over the universe."

When it comes to taking over the universe, Nicole Lander is especially enthusiastic about the potential of online video.

"We've just finished producing 67 mini-movies, short video clips from 30 seconds to three minutes, and they are online briefings so people know what they're going to play in the forest," she says.

"Video really whets people's appetite. The whole point is suspending disbelief, forgetting your troubles at work or whatever, and really getting into the game. With authentic uniforms and good-quality videos, people can say, ‘I really want to play that game'."

Feeding the masses in the fanbase

Lander also writes a blog, updating Battlefield owners and fans about what's going on at HQ. This has fallen off in frequency as Facebook and Twitter have taken over, but Lander still updates it "at least once a month and it's got to have photos or video".

"Because we have so many people out there who are fans in our community, they post to me," she says. "For example, I got photos from some guys in Wales who run a Battlefield and just won a huge tourism award. I got an email from a Battlefield in England that did an event with some guys in wheelchairs and the smiles on their faces were amazing."