Win free beer with this new game app

Smartphone owners can play games for free beer with a new mobile app designed by a group of students at the University of San Diego.

Push For Beer, a Fruit Ninja-like app launched March 19, rewards its winners with free beer at local bars. It has already been downloaded more than 2,000 times, with users completing more than 30,000 games.

“So far the response has been incredible, and the retention in the app is insane,” said founder Nathan Resnick, a junior at USD and also the founder of accessories brand Yes Man Watches. “When they start playing, they don’t stop until they win a free beer.”

Developed by Resnick’s fellow USD junior Albert Frimpong, Push For Beer targets college students and the bars that serve them – three so far, in San Diego’s Pacific Beach and Mission Beach neighborhoods.

There’s no cost to users and no fee for bars to participate, Resnick said. Bars can sign themselves up and then choose the days and times they will honor the free-beer promotion. His end goal is to sell in-app advertising to beer brands such as Budweiser and Ballast Point.

The game can be a powerful tool to help bars drive more traffic during slow periods, Resnick said, and for cash-strapped college students who enjoy a good deal.

“Our pitch to the bars is that we get them new customers, because no one goes to a bar and has one beer and no one goes to a bar by themselves,” he said. “The return on investment of working with us is pretty incredible.”

Tom Nickel, owner of O’Brien’s Pub in Kearny Mesa, said the app may prove valuable to bars in areas with high student populations, but he doesn’t expect it to be a good fit for every pub. Push For Beer might be helpful for newer beer establishments trying to get their name out there, but it’s more likely to bring in what he calls “the coupon crowd.”

“These are the people who are looking for coupons, deals and happy hours, and they’re only going to be loyal to you when the coupon deal comes out,” Nickel said.

He’s not big on enticing one-time customers with discounts, he explained, but on winning loyal customers with quality.

Peter Curry, also a junior at the university, said Push For Beer was a tough sell to bars at first, because they didn’t want to take the time to set up a profile on the app until there was a proven audience on it.

“The objection I’ve gotten the most often is that they have too many promotions going on already, and they don’t want to sign onto anything else until they have quantifiable results,” he said.

That created a conundrum for the entrepreneurs, who needed bars on the app to give their users a reason to play the game. They scored a few before the launch, and Curry expects it to get easier to sign them on now that there’s a proven, engaged and growing user base in the app.

Several bars liked Push For beer because it’s a fresh, new and quick way to get people engaged and give them a reason to come in, he said.

“It’s a great way to get exposure for (the bars), because everybody’s on their phone to begin with,” Curry said. “You give them a catchy little game to play, and people can get addicted to these things.”

Nickel said that even though he might not have a use for the app, he loves seeing these types of tools and services spring out of the craft beer industry.

“I’m continually impressed with the amount of beer-centric things happening in San Diego, period,” Nickel said.

Resnick and his crew plan to continue spreading the word about the app by speaking to fraternities and sororities one college at a time.