Case Study

Fable III Kingmaker was a geo-location based gaming app intended to create a buzz prior to the launch of the latest console game from Xbox's Fable III gaming franchise and ultimately to drive sales and push the game to the top selling spot ahead of its rivals.

Key Features

• Players were invited to register within the app and assigned to either the team of ‘rebels’ or ‘royals’
• Enable players to pinpoint exact location through GPS and plant flags to conquer geographic territories
• ‘Check in’ to collect collect treasure and virtual currency
• Ability to port virtual currency from mobile game to full game via XBOX Live – driving purchase of the full version

Results

• Fable III Kingmaker entered the UK gaming charts at no.1
• Integrated mobile and gaming worlds for the very first time
• Over 93,000 gamers interacted with the app
• Over 5 million virtual flags planted & over 5 billion pieces of virtual treasure collected
• Won 8 industry awards
• Generated over 600 pieces of media coverage in consumer and trade publications including Eurogamer, T3 and Campaign

Client Quote

"Earlier this year, McCann developed a marketing programme for the Xbox title Fable III that involved building a massively multiplayer mobile phone game. We needed a truly brilliant mobile development partner to make this idea a reality: one with the technology to cost-effectively build scale across multiple mobile platforms & drive a big player base, one that had the technical expertise to build an app that could handle multiple & complex database transactions, and one with the creative & design ability to build what was effectively the first Xbox-branded mobile app ever, a genuine part of the Fable universe. We looked at all the options out there, and it was very clear that Grapple Mobile were the best partner we could have picked.

Right at the heart of the campaign’s success was the mobile app – it’s the player’s interface with the game - and it’s full credit to the whole team at Grapple, including the excellent project management and client service guys, that IGN, the world’s biggest gaming website, gave us all our killer quote: “Fable III Kingmaker is no longer just a game – it’s an obsession.”"

Tom Rothenberg
Managing Partner, McCann London
November 2010