Pagani, ‘Gear.Club’ And YouTube Stars Unveiled A $2.5M New Car

Gear.Club is a free-to-play game for Apple TV, iOS and Android that offers high-speed races with realistic 3D graphics. When the game launched for mobile devices in October, Eden Games CMO Pascal Clarysse wanted to do something big involving internet creators and, of course, cars. What they got was a high-speed marketing ride for the record books.

“We knew we wanted to merge YouTubers with fast cars and playing the game in a wacky setup,” Clarysse told ION, noting that finding a car manufacturer willing to partner with them was easier said than done. It wasn’t until Eden Games had a conversation with Italian super car manufacturer, Pagani that Clarysse’s fun idea became a reality . . . in a hurry. As it turned out, Pagani was about to unveil its new Huayra Roadster at the Geneva Motor Show and was interested in a creative team-up as well—but they’d have to work fast.

“There was a window of opportunity but it was a short one,” Clarysse related. “The Pagani Huayra Roadster was about to launch [in] Geneva on March 7. The engineers would work on it till March 2. It would fly to Switzerland on March 4. So it had to happen in Modena on March 3 or not at all—both the Facebook Live unveiling of the Huayra Roadster and the filming at the Modena track and the Huayra Roadster had to be available in Gear.Club concurrently for the [real-life] launch on March 7.”

While the average consumer might not be able to drop $2.5 million on his/her very own Pagani, at least they were able to drive a virtual one in Gear.Club during the limited engagement.

“What happened next was nothing short of a miracle [and] a mad rush of 90 days on both sides,” he continued. “Thirty people crunching day and night for three months at Eden Games studio in Lyon to get the car ready on time in the game. It ended up being approved by Pagani on March 6, and by Apple and Google on March 7. . . not a second too soon.”

For the YouTube event, Eden Games chose a mix of popular creators from the world of cars, food and humor: F2 Freestylers, Yiannimize, Black Panthaa, Epic Meal Time and Dvlz Station. Each creator was flown out to the famous Modena track in Italy to get not only a glimpse of the new Pagani model, but climb inside and feel the rush as they played Gear.Club from the passenger seat.

“Marketing teams at Pagani and Eden Games collaborated in such a refreshingly open fashion that it wasn’t clear any more who works for who—fantastic emulation,” Clarysse said, “with Michael Staskin and Luca Venturi over at Pagani pulling all the stops and opening all the doors for us. Incredibly driven people.”

In addition to the game development, booking and coordinating talent from across the world, the film crew had just one day on the ground and three days to edit through 25 terabytes of footage.

The resulting hard work and strategic partnerships yielded a tremendous amount of coverage for the Gear.Club and Pagani brand, with nearly a million video views across YouTube and Facebook. All of the YouTube creators recount the experience with gratitude and wonder on their channels, and will not forget their experiences any time soon.