The action thriller Wanted staring Angelia Jolie and Morgan Freeman premiered in Europe yesterday.  Its US premier two months ago was accompanied by the launch of Swedish Developer Stillfront’s Wanted free to play MMO.

While the launch of an accompanying game with film is nothing new, this FIG (Fan Immersion Game) marks the growing popularity in such projects.  Film studios are watching the numbers, with some video game sales reaching into the millions that previously only summer blockbusters could achieve.  It’s also recently been speculated that the two media are in a dead heat horserace, with one detracting from the other.

The Wanted MMO differs slightly from other FIGs in that it’s based on a  completely free-to-play model.  Rather than launched as a parallel revenue maker, this FIG seeks to draw more and more people into the entire Wanted experience, and therefore drive traffic to box offices.  Stillfront is a FIG specialist, and explained in their press release announcing the game:

“Fan Immersion Games (FIGs) are casual, massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) that are free to play yet also include opportunities for players to buy advantages and premium accounts using micro transactions payable via SMS messages and credit cards. These games deliver high fan engagement through their story-driven design and community elements.

According to the Casual Games Association, the North American online casual games market is estimated to reach $690 million with worldwide revenue of over $1.5 billion. DFC Intelligence states that the worldwide online games market is forecasted to reach $13 billion in 2011.”

Adding a bit of icing to the cake for the European market, the Wanted game was officially ported to the iPhone allowing viewers to bring their new MMO (and associated microtransactions) along for the ride.  In addition to utilizing the iPhone’s tilt function navigation, the mobile edition has in game benefits for players that log on regularly.  While this may only be speculation, logging in on a mobile platform has the ability to be seen by others (think train, bus, subway, etc.) and adds to the potential viral marketing aspect.

Free to play, microtransaction based models are coming at consumers left, right and center with a grain of resistance in the Western Market.  While EA’s doing a good job of breaking down the walls of acceptance with it’s highly anticipated top tier title Battlefield Heroes, perhaps bringing the concept to users via a ‘backdoor’ aka FIG, in combination with high profile pc or console based games might just be the winning recipe?