Last weekend my willpower collapsed and I bought Xbox 360 blockbuster Halo 3. I’d tried to resist, but when 31 friends are online, and 30 are playing one game, it’s near impossible to hold out.
On Sunday evening, over 900,000 players were online, and numbers have topped 1 million. That’s people online at any one time, and people that have paid not only for the game (Up to around £49.99 for the limited edition version), but have also most likely spent out on buying an Xbox Gold subscription for 12 months of online gaming.
Now imagine if your brand or publication had access to a code to make the main character in Halo3 run faster, take more damage, or even a special character design?
Think the chap that has paid £40 to get a game on release, rather than waiting for a discount, would find it easy to resist? Especially with the peer pressure of 30 of his friends waiting to be impressed by his new skills?
And whatever the brands, there’s a likely game to tie in. Whether it’s a racing game, an adventure game, a sci-fi shooter, or something oddball and cute like Viva Pinata.