Marketing

Introducing XR Server for Microsoft PlayFabAlice & Smith, April 19, 2022

At this year’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is partnering with Alice & Smith to announce a preview of Microsoft PlayFab for Media LiveOps, a platform that will enable media companies to transform their user experiences through gaming ideology and mechanics.

PlayFab already powers many of the world’s most popular games including Roblox, Minecraft, Halo, and Rainbox Six Siege. Now, Microsoft is bringing PlayFab to the world of media streaming, where the tenets of gamification – viewer engagement, loyalty, and community-building – are still finding their footing.

And the timing couldn’t be better: media companies are racing to deepen and sustain engagement with an audience that’s demanding more information, control, and interaction than ever. By combining the connected interactivity of gameplay with the proactive insight of first-party user behavior and media event data, PlayFab will give media companies the power to better understand their audiences and react in real-time with targeted programming, promotions, and user journeys.

While PlayFab unlocks the full power of gamification, it is beholden to developers and engineers to operate it. With this in mind, Alice & Smith developed XR Server, an agile and user-friendly visual management tool designed to leverage the power of PlayFab with consummate ease.

Available now on Azure, XR Server is designed to help PlayFab users hit the ground running – and stay running. Its robust data warehouse and analytics platform are designed specifically for gamification, monetization, and retention.

Right out the gates, users can use XR to visually model audience segments, user journeys, digital economies, and multi-device experiences without extensive onboardings or change management. Its SDK integrates seamlessly with web, iOS, Android, Unreal Engine, Unity, Oculus VR, Twitch, and many more. If PlayFab puts the power of gamification right at your fingertips, XR Server makes you feel like that power has been there all along.

The complete package will be on display at NAB, featuring a live demo of virtual reality watch parties powered by Unreal Engine, as well as seamless tablet and IOS integration.

Visit XR Server today and discover the full power of Microsoft PlayFab for Media LiveOps.

 

Paradox Interactive Bloodline 2 Interactive Marketing Campaign

Hello Game No Man’s Sky Alternate Reality Campaign

Paradox Interactive San Francisco Interactive Theater and Transmedia Event

Alice & Smith Gamification Engine

Marketing

Bloodline 2 Alternate Reality GameAlice & Smith, May 4, 2019

Launched in 2004, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was a groundbreaking cult video game that still has a very dedicated fanbase to this day. Fifteen years later, Vampire fans and gamers alike are ready for the much-anticipated sequel, Bloodlines 2.

 

Instead of taking a more traditional marketing route, Paradox Interactive decided to team with Alice & Smith to create a transmedia campaign and take this historical announcement to the next level. Deeply rooted in the mythos of the World of Darkness universe, we crafted a three-month-long interactive journey that would captivate our fans until the very last moment at the official announcement party, set to take place at the 2019 Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Starting as a very simplistic rabbit hole—a cryptic code in a Twitch stream and weird new ads from a tech startup in Silicon Valley—every single weekend that followed pushed the envelope in level of immersion and experience. As the story got more rich and deep, the audience kept growing along with the journalistic and industry curiosity.

Very early on, fans resonated with the vampire vibe of a new tech startup company called Tender: a next next-gen dating platform that helped you find your perfect soulmate. In exchange for revealing your blood type and filling out a psychological profile, the company would welcome you amongst its beta testers and submit you to a wide range of strange behavioral and emotional tests.

The further players dug in the rabbit hole, the more intense and dark the activities became. By the fourth week, more than 350 websites, Discord channels, Reddit threads, and press articles were trying to tackle the mystery.

With the app live, we began creating buzz through an influencer campaign and a series of exciting live events in Los Angeles and New York City in which players interacted both in-person and online. One of these events involved an immersive escape room experience to the lucky fans who were able to attend, and every time fans were rewarded with more and more teaser content about the upcoming announcement.

As the final climax, Tender invited 300 fans and industry personalities to a 2-hour long interactive theater night in San Francisco. Three fans were also selected to be the official voice and boots on the ground for the community, based on their skills, performance, and leadership. They were flown, at our expense, for three days to perform specific ARG puzzles and tasks that ultimately changed the outcome of the ending and the full storyline. (Read more about the Tender Party in San Francisco)

More than 200,000 unique viewers followed the interactive stream and interacted with the live audience. Twitch drop campaigns, live voting, onsite emotions analytics, and many more features were integrated to create a complete transmedia moment.

Instead of reading about it, the fans had the chance to become part of the campaign. By the end of the final event, more than 40 press articles were written about the ARG, 600 000 attempts were made to solve puzzles, and 180 000 conversations were registered with our various NPCs operated by an advanced AI chatbot.

 

 

On the night of the launch, we revealed the new website and transitioned our ARG audience into the company loyalty platform, leaving them with tangible benefits from their participation in the ARG. We also created a very immersive 2.5D experience and a gamification layer, inviting players to explore and discover the content.

The return on investment of such an engaging and interactive marketing campaign can be measured both in sales and press coverage, but also in mementos that fans will remember forever—a key to success in building a strong brand in this day and age.

Gameinformer
Paradox Dating App ARG Seems To Hint At Something Related To Vampire: The Masquerade Next Month

PC Gamer
Paradox may be teasing a new Vampire: The Masquerade game with a dating app ARG

ARGNet
Literally Give Your Heart Away on Tender This Valentine’s Day

PC Gamer
Paradox continues to tease it’s V:TM game with new images

Destructoid
Paradox ARG Teasing a new game

IGN
A dating app is promoting Vampire: The Masquerade

Kotaku
Paradox seems to be teasing a new V:TM game via a dating app

Rock Paper Shotgun
V:TM:B follow-up teased by Paradox with ARG

Rock Paper Shotgun
V:TM – Bloodlines sequel might be sneaking up on us at GDC

PCGamesN
Paradox’s new ‘dating app’ could be the start of a new Vampire ARG

PCGamesN
Paradox is teasing its new Vampire: The Masquerade game

GamerRevolution
New V:TM game teased by Tinder Parody

AltChar
There’s a new Vampire: The Masquerade release on the way

GamerInformer
Paradox dating app ARG seems to hint at Vampire: The Masquerade

Eurogamer
Will there be a V:TM announcement at next month’s GDC?

VG247
Paradox could be teasing a new V:TM

GamePressure
Paradox will announce new Vampire: The Masquerade?

Trusted Reviews
Thirst Trap: This dating app ARG is hinting at a new V:TM game

Game Watcher
Latest ARG might be teasing new V:TM game

Game Watcher
New Vampire: The Masquerade game reveal next month?

Trusted Reviews
Thirst Trap: This dating app ARG is hinting at a new V:TM game

The Gamer
Paradox is teasing a new V:TM game with bloodsucking dating site

Video Gamer
Paradox might be teasing a new Vampire: The Masquerade project

Video Gamer
Vampire: The Masquerade reveal just might be coming next month

Game Reactor
Teases for a new Vampire:The Masquerade keep coming

Critical Hit Gaming
Paradox is teasing something with a new ARG, possibly related to V:TM

EGM
Dating app and ARG might hide secrets of new V:TM

Game Banshee
Vampire: The Masquerade game teased by Paradox Interactive

 

Uncategorized

No Man’s Sky Alternate Reality GameAlice & Smith, April 4, 2019

When we were approached to create an event to celebrate the first anniversary of No Man’s Sky’s release and upcoming patch updates, our goal was to build a positive and fun experience to give back to the community and thank the fans who had remained enthusiastic and active since the beginning.

We believed that the best way to do this was to create engaging and collaborative events that brought fans from around the world together, created new friendships, and shared our passion for this unique universe.

We created Waking Titan: a six-chapter transmedia ARG event that ran for more than eighteen months. While creating content for Waking Titan, we were able to turn to the rich complexity of the No Man’s Sky’s procedurally generated universe and build a storyline that explored some of the elaborate topics that surrounded the game and its origin. This narrative also created a very creative platform to give players ongoing updates, teasers, and sneak peeks at upcoming content.

The Waking Titan universe was huge. With puzzles and events almost every single weekend, it spanned over X touchpoints (16 radio stations around the world, dozens of websites, voicemails, NPCs, YouTube channels, forums, Discord servers, physical locations, and many, many, many more) and also included crafting and community puzzles that showed the scope, passion, and talents of the global fan base.

In addition to having all of these avenues players could explore on their own, we also created live events in Boston, New York, Paris, London, and Montreal, as well as sending out physical packages, mystery boxes, and mementos to thousands of players so that they could hold a piece of the experience in their hands and know that their involvement wasn’t overlooked.

This experience resulted in 2.5 million puzzle-solving attempts, 800 000 interactions with our chatbots and terminals, and countless 3 AM panic attacks on Discord as we worked to make sure everything ran smoothly for our players as the narrative picked up and evolved.

PC Gamer
Mysterious NMS audio tapes kick off an otherworldly ARG

PC Gamer
The No Man’s Sky ARG is back in action

Eurogamer
NMS’s Waking Titan ARG is back

DailyStar
Waking Titan Stream the start of MASSIVE PS4/PC News

Kotaku
The Mysterious NMS ARG: Hidden Codes and Creepy Voices

IGN
NMS: Mysterious Cassette Tapes ARG points to Portal Update

Gamespot
NMS ARG Teases big new update coming next month

PCGamesN
The NMS ARG might be teasing the 1.5 update

TechRaptor
NMS and the Waking Titan Mystery

The Spinoff
No Walkman’s Sky? NMS devs send mysterious cassette tapes to Reddit

The Spinoff
No Man’s Sky is finally finally great

Gamerant
No Man’s Sky ARG now hosting Livestream

Newsweek
NMS Waking Titan ARG shares free steam codes and teases VR

VG247
NMS ARG hints that an update is on the horizon

 

Uncategorized

Zynga CSR2 Global Marketing CampaignAlice & Smith, January 4, 2019

CSR2 is a F2P drag racing game developed by Zynga (ZNGA – NASDAQ). With its stunning graphics and straightforward game mechanics, the app quickly catered to car enthusiasts by using real-life brands such as Porche, BMW, Mercedes Benz and Ferrari. With this fanbase already in place, Zynga wanted to craft a special campaign to celebrate the 70th-year anniversary of Porsche.

From the start, our main idea was clear: leverage the community’s passion for the game to help us increase the reach of our campaign, avoiding yet another banners campaign strategy. Like our previous operations, we wanted this promotion to have Alice & Smith’s signature: crafting an entertaining and interactive campaign that would stand out from the rest.

In just eight weeks, we created a web-based immersive 3D world map that helped visualize the scope of the global community. The map featured screenshots and assets of the game, generated by the players, and geolocalized them in real time. By browsing the 3D world map, the players could now see just how vast the CSR2 community was, and by liking posts and sharing their own, they were granted additional in-game rewards, giving them an advantage in terms of progression.

By doing so, Alice & Smith let the community show their passion for the game and rewarded them for their engagement. The campaign reached 26 000 contributions from fans and showed newcomers that CSR2 was more than a F2P gaming app; it was a place where they could show their enthusiasm and achievements worldwide.

 

Paradox Interactive
Bloodline 2 Interactive Marketing Campaign

Hello Game
No Man’s Sky Alternate Reality Campaign

Paradox Interactive
San Francisco Interactive Theater and Transmedia Event

Alice & Smith
Gamification Engine

 

Technology

Gamification Engine Alice & Smith, May 5, 2019

A robust and scale-able framework rolled out by Alice & Smith for over 1.2 million users across more than 150 countries. Flexible enough to support any corporate training or marketing campaign with engagement mechanics. Powered by GDPR-compliant Microsoft Playfab Engine, our platform is ready to integrate and can support your full gamification strategy and needs.

 

With pre-made gamification modules, we can focus on storytelling, engagement, content, and management of your gamification initiative. With over 540,000 hours of gameplay using our platform, we can help you with most best practice, use case, and integration strategies.

– User progression via challenges, missions, quests, quest chains, and multi-day campaigns or events
– Item, inventory, buff, debuff, and consume over time or single event
– Multiple currency, daily allowance, and loyalty points
– Global Leader Board and Team Leader Board
– Drop rate system for missions, loot, buffs, debuffs, and items
– Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or specific-date events, mission drops, and loot events
– Multiple progression vectors: reputation, experience, level
– Faction/rank-based team system
– Text and voice chat
– Time-based event, Collective and community unlock
– Advanced individual + community metrics and analytics

 

User progression in your global campaign is key for adoption, understanding, engagement, and training. Our segmentation engine lets you have unprecedented customization over the user’s personal experience.

– Multi-level onboarding custom paths for new users
– End-game and power-user adaptable scenarios
– Drop rate, burnout prediction, and mitigation strategy
– Hyperactive User support and engagement curve
– Ambassadors detection and activation

 

Integration of your corporate platform lets you create more advanced scenarios. It can be basic events—like rewarding users for exploring your intranet, knowledge acquisition, and usage of your ERP system—or more advanced features, like including sales team performance as a part of metrics for the leaderboard. Create teams based on business unit, seniority, and more…

– Inbound triggers from external events
– Outbound triggers to external platforms using player conditions
– User level, community level, mission level and global level triggers
– Google, Facebook, Twitter, Steam, and Oauth login authentication
– Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services, LDAP, and Kerberos Enterprise login

 

User experience of your gamification initiative can be seamlessly integrated into your existing tools and platform, or built for almost any channel you want.

– Native mobile with push notifications
– Website, micro-site, and intranet integration
– Native Tablet with Augmented Reality Camera
– Apple Watch and Apple TV support
– Unity and Unreal engine SDK

 

Tracking, reporting, and analytics are completely accessible via API and also include a pre-built executive dashboarding system.

– Pull and push analytics
– Internal Analytics Integration
– External Google Analytics, Mailchimp, and 30 other API integrations
– Custom JSON analytics integration

 

Many more advanced features let you customize our gamification framework and adapt it to your corporate or campaign needs.

– Twitch Drop Campaign integration
– Cloud-based scale-able infrastructure
– Custom scripts and custom events
– Run time code-base modification
– Custom-based editors and management panel

 

We have done this countless times and will save you a lot of money. Our platform is perfect for moving from prototyping to full-scale corporate deployment. Take the time to look at our portfolio to see our platform in action, for global marketing campaign, live events, corporate training, loyalty layer, and many more applications that will help you get an edge on the competition and better engage your users.

 

Paradox Interactive
Bloodline 2 Interactive Marketing Campaign

Hello Game
No Man’s Sky Alternate Reality Campaign

Zynga
CSR2 Porche Global Marketing Campaign

Paradox Interactive
San Francisco Interactive Theater and Transmedia Event

 

Services

Storytelling Services Alice & Smith, May 5, 2019

In a world of constant forced advertising, standing out from the crowd and engaging with your audience is key to not fading into the background. That’s why, at Alice & Smith, we create tailor-made transmedia storytelling experiences for your community and your organisation.

We conceptualize and execute custom interactive campaigns that will lift up your community and create memorable moments for your brand—moments that will engage not only your fans but also the journalists and influencers in your industry.

We deliver interactive campaigns, brand storytelling, live events, and physical and virtual experiences that allow you to connect with your audience in unexpected and exciting ways that traditional marketing campaigns simply cannot.

 

 

Our storytellers are well versed in a variety of genres and methods of building upon your existing ecosystem. We can help you with a product launch, new game, DLCs, movies, shows and festivals, or focus on creating collaborative platforms for your ambassadors and hardcore fans.

Our team will give you access to new avenues to better understand your market, such as Discord  servers and Twitch channels, where you can begin to get a better understanding of what your consumer base wants in a far more candid way—something no think tank can come close to.

The communities and events created by our storytellers will continue to thrive long after the project has reached its completion. Our interactive marketing campaigns don’t generate clicks or leads, they generate captive spectators and passionate fans. And the more engaged they are, the more likely they are to remain involved with your brand, product, or universe.

 

Paradox Interactive
Bloodline 2 Interactive Marketing Campaign

Hello Game
No Man’s Sky Alternate Reality Campaign

Zynga
CSR2 Porche Global Marketing Campaign

Paradox Interactive
San Francisco Interactive Theater and Transmedia Event

 

Technology

Loyalty Platform Alice & Smith, May 5, 2019

When it comes to retaining customers, loyalty programs and platforms are efficient tools that can make all the difference. Alice & Smith offers an expertise that will help you research, design, develop, and operate such tools and platforms.

Our research team and game design specialists will help you craft a ranks-and-rewards system that will cater to both casual and hardcore fans.

Event-based design let us create complex and adaptive journeys that will ensure that the consumers feel exclusive and taken care of. Onboarding new clients, helping mitigate drop out scenarios, designing moments for hardcore fans and ambassadors, we have processed and designed advanced flow and mechanics for more than one million users.

With our storytelling team, we can help you create all the necessary content to extend your brand and make your fans feel exclusive, not only in terms of redeemable rewards but also immersive and memorable interactive experiences.

Our Gamification Platform can also speed up your time to market and rely on a well-established infrastructure to design your persona, customers’ journey, and your rewards system.

For more advanced users, we can help you set up and operate your lead scoring and lead nurturing mechanics for both short-term and multi-year conversion strategy. If you are interested in our operation capacity, read more about our gamification platform or our full stack production service.

With us, a loyalty program becomes an experience that can go beyond the simple retention of your users or customers.

 

Paradox Interactive
Bloodline 2 Interactive Marketing Campaign

Hello Game
No Man’s Sky Alternate Reality Campaign

Zynga
CSR2 Porche Global Marketing Campaign

Paradox Interactive
San Francisco Interactive Theater and Transmedia Event

 

Services

Full Stack Production Alice & Smith, May 5, 2019

Alice & Smith includes a very experienced team of passionate artists that will immerse themselves in your brand like your fans do. Backed by a full-stack capacity to plan, create, deliver, and operate interactive marketing programs and platforms for the very demanding entertainment generation.

Our production capacity includes narrative design; visual, interactive, and motion design; 3D artists, multi-platform coding (Web, Mobile Native App, VR); and Twitch campaigns, but also gamification framework and loyalty/CRM platforms.

Our operation team can support you in content creation, video and voice artists, community management, multi-channel orchestration, interactive events, and much more. We operate in multiple time zones in both French and English. As we speak, we manage more than 50 active websites and have supported more than two million fans across our own platforms for our clients. 

Alice & Smith is part of the humanise collective with more than 150 specialists across multiple verticals (Entertainment, Gaming, Banking, Travel, CyberSecurity, etc…). To learn more about the Humanise collective, click here!

 

Paradox Interactive
Bloodline 2 Interactive Marketing Campaign

Hello Game
No Man’s Sky Alternate Reality Campaign

Zynga
CSR2 Porche Global Marketing Campaign

Paradox Interactive
San Francisco Interactive Theater and Transmedia Event

 

 

Trailer campaign for the cyber security game, NITE Team 4, produced by Alice & Smith.

news_videos

NITE Team 4 | Trailer Campaign Alice & Smith, May 5, 2019

Multiplayer Live Event accross 66 streams. – Client : Twitch Interactive

news_videos

Twitch Helios Event | Video Case Alice & Smith, March 5, 2019

https://www.argn.com/2019/02/tender_beta_arg_about_vampires_trust_no_more/

A&S GAME-CHANGING LIVE EVENT SOLUTION POWERS PDXCON REMIXED

trailers

PLAYFAB XR Showcase Alice & Smith, May 5, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0KBVK8gHqJM?autoplay=0