Zynga to add Indiana Jones to Adventure World game

Starting Tuesday, Zynga will add the Indiana Jones character to its Adventure World game on Facebook.

As we noted earlier, Zynga has a distinct lack of well-known brands compared to traditional game companies such as Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard. To compensate for that, Zynga has been doing marketing deals with celebrities such as Snoop Dogg and Lady Gaga. Now it will integrate Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones character into the Adventure World game.

The new integration will feature a chapter in the game entitled Indiana Jones and the Calendar of the Sun. The chapter is a collaboration between Lucasfilm, which owns the rights to Indiana Jones, and Zynga. Jones will be woven into the Adventure World story as a character, and the game’s new name will be Indiana Jones Adventure World.

This kind of tactic will help the new medium of social games get more traction with users. The company said previously that it would add the Indian Jones character to Adventure World in October. It is a little late with finishing up. The new chapter will be available in 13 languages. Players will have three different kinds of Indy outfits to wear and will get Indy gadgets in upcoming maps such as an Indiana Jones tent, snake bait, greased push blocks and a bear trap.

If games like Adventure World take off, then Zynga will have a better chance at pulling off an initial public offering. Zynga filed for an IPO in June and is expected to go public any day now. But Zynga’s total user count has slipped to 215 million monthly active users. So it’s time to call in Indiana Jones for a rescue.