Well, Halloween is over. A bummer for sure, but now is that glorious time of year when parents can sit around eating all their kids' leftover candy. PopCap and the American Dental Association had a novel idea this year: how about giving kids a hit video game instead of delicious -- tooth rotting -- candy?
When we were kids, you always knew where the dentist's house was located. And even if you didn't know the house by memory, the toothbrush laying in the bottom of your bag was a pretty solid indicator Dr. Cleanmouth -- not an actual dentist name -- was living somewhere on the block.
But instead of a plastic toothbrush buried under a layer of those weird-tasting peanut butter logs, PopCap teamed up with the ADA to hand out downloadable copies of Plants vs. Zombies. Based on today's results, the Stop Zombie Mouth campaign was a success.
"The Stop Zombie [Mouth] campaign was a tremendous success using a unique platform to improve the oral health literacy of entire families,” said the ADA's Dr. Jonathan Shenkin, via press release. "The American Dental Association looks forward to future innovative collaborations that enable us to realize the goal of reducing oral health disparities."
PopCap and the ADA printed and distributed over a million trading cards with download codes for Plants vs. Zombies (PC or Mac). Since Halloween, the game has been downloaded by clean-mouthed kids more than 250,000 times.
The eligibility period to cash-in those codes has been extended to November 13. And if you're a dentist -- or maybe just a person who promises not to cram your face with Hershey bars -- you can actually still download printable code coupons on the PopCap site.
The developer and dentists conducted a survey, finding that 89-percent of kids would still like Halloween "even if it was less about candy." 93-percent of kids said they would take a free video game in lieu of sugary treats.
Another survey, conducted by the author of this story, found that 100% of people who wrote this story on MacLife will eat your candy for you.
For more information on where to send all your Sour Patch Kids, follow Matt Clark on Twitter.
