Auctiva has introduced a new website called BattleBids.com that features games designed to make bidding on eBay more fun and interactive. The games "animate" auction bids, and include a hot-dog eating contest, a golf game and a racing game. A future game called BattleBids will be a Sotheby's-style auction house with virtual bidders holding paddles. Shoppers can go to Auctiva's BattleBids website, and eBay sellers can place the games directly in their auction listings.

Visitors can click on "Replay of the day" on the BattleBids.com website to see the game applied to a live eBay auction. An animated game called Bid Racer depicts real eBay bidders as racecars speeding along a racetrack. A bidder can shout taunts such as "Eat my dust" when they outbid other bidders. The game page also displays the auction listing description, and clicking on the title brings up the listing on the eBay website.

Auctiva founder Jeff Schlicht said he expects the games to be viral. "At the end of each replay is an invitation to tell a friend which sends them the replay," he said. The first games are called Bid Racer, Nitro Boats, Golf, Shuffleboard, Hot Air Balloons, Galactic Bidder, and Hot Dog Eating Contest. The next group of applications will be focused more towards women shoppers, and Schlicht said he had ideas for other applications that would appeal to adults, such as puzzle games and word games.

"We're planning on building more features around the community of users," Schlicht said. "Each user has their own profile page which displays some of their recent Battlebids wins and losses along with some of their stats." There's no charge for buyers or sellers.

Auctiva provides eBay auction-management and marketplace tools, including the Sellathon analytics tool acquired earlier this year.

http://www.battlebids.com