Working to promote one of the biggest and most revered IP’s on the planet—one that I personally loved as well as worked to develop in Halo 4—was a dream come true. With its multibillion-dollar value and legions of adoring fans, helping to promote a new Halo game by a new studio had to be done just right.
Days after I rolled off of UI/UX development for Halo 4. I moved over to the biz side of the company and hit the ground running. We were weeks out from a huge convention hosted in our own back yard. Not only was the proximity ideal, but this event attracted thousands of fans that were the target market’s bulls eye—Rooster Teeth’s RTX event.
I worked with Microsoft’s internal Halo studio, 343 Industries, and broke new ground for Certain Affinity’s visibility on a project. For RTX, Certain Affinity was able to post an exclusive, never-before-seen Halo 4 screenshot on our website, introduce via a panel our overhaul of the user-created content feature—Forge (see video above), be a part of the Halo 4 booth’s first hands-on playable experience by fans, as well as sit on autograph panels for fans. All of these tactics were firsts for Certain Affinity.
Oh, also of note—you can put me up in front of a couple thousand people to speak (also streamed out live on Twitch.tv to thousands on the internet). I start rolling at the 7:44 mark.
After getting some visibility for our work on multiplayer maps, modes and Forge in the public eye via RTX, a new problem presented itself—no one really knew how to use this new version of Forge.
The Forge feature set received a significant overhaul, however Forge was not going to be “officially” supported with information on how to use it. That was a problem. If fans were not educated on how to use all of the new functionality, then Halo, as well as Certain Affinity (now that we were publicly attached to Forge) could take a brand hit due to this poor user experience.
To address that, I had a series of Forge tutorial videos created (example above). We produced 5 videos for the game’s launch so hard core Forgers could hit the ground running. In addition to that, we dropped a new video every Friday for the next 10 weeks.
The videos were a hit.
· 350,000+ views and counting
· A time spent of 2 years, 182 days, and twelve hours
OK, now lets get the game to the fans! This is the really fun part.
I helped plan, coordinate, and execute the largest Microsoft Halo 4 launch event in North America in Austin’s own Domain Microsoft store. The plan was for NYC to be the largest launch event, but hurricane Sandy cancelled that venue, so there was a lot of scrambling to plus up the Austin event.
With event promotion, the draw of Rooster Teeth, Cosplay from the troops of the 405th, Certain Affinity autograph signing, merch raffles, oh and the fact that we were selling the game at midnight— we drew 1,500+ people to kick off this new chapter in the Halo saga.
The RTX event definitely helped our exposure, but we needed more scale and the game's launch provide another beat to get our name out there. To do this, we worked with a PR firm that I had used in the past to secure interviews about Certain Affinity to major publications (Gameindustry.biz, Polygon, and IGN to name a few).
The good news? It worked! After the exposure that Certain Affinity received for Halo 4, new biz dev opportunities came charging through the door (Call of Duty: Ghosts as well as others that I currently cannot make public).
There was also a brand lift for Certain Affinity. Once an unknown, Certain Affinity is now known as a premium-label developer for some of the biggest franchises in the world. Here we are in the video above—front and center promoting the latest installment in the Halo franchise—The Halo Master Chief Collection (HMCC). The video above is one of a seven-video series with Certain Affinity’s founder walking the press through new content and features for (HMCC).