Halo 3 Trial Download
By ibnukasim
The release of Halo 3 was wildly anticipated, as the game was the third in the original trilogy of the Halo series. That led to the trial download becoming the most downloaded game demo in Xbox 360 history. The trial download also helped another game, Crackdown, become successful.
How would a trial download lead to the success of another game? It has a lot to do with the distribution and marketing effort for a game that was originally planned to release on the Xbox system. Microsoft had become worried that Crackdown wouldn't sell well. So they used a marketing gimmick – bundle Crackdown with an access code to the trial download. It was a success as 1.5 million people bought Crackdown in the first six months. Microsoft was very pleased with the Crackdown sales numbers.
The trial download strategy was used after play testers said Crackdown was no good. They couldn't follow the
game or figure out what to do because it was non linear. That led Microsoft into coming up with a clever marketing plan. Some people may think it's underhanded to trick people into buying a game, but Crackdown was a good game that needed a little push.
The incentive of the Halo 3 trial download led more people to play as agents seeking to defeat gang leaders. The agents have superhuman skills such as strength and speed. They accumulate these powers by building experience by taking orbs from defeated enemies. The clever part of the system was that the orbs released depended on the manner in which the agent killed the enemy. An enemy defeated with speed would release a speed orb.
The bottom line is thanks to the success generated by the trial download, many people were exposed to an excellent game in Crackdown.
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