Hello Games
No Man's Sky

The Goal

No Man's Sky is an action-adventure survival video game. Set in an infinite generated galaxy with 18 quintillion planets to explore, it sold more than 750,000 copies at launch, making it a worldwide top seller. Unfortunately, the game also earned one of the worst-ever user ratings and was the object of an investigation for false advertising.

Many players felt that the product did not deliver what was promised during the advertising campaign and as a result the brand was tarnished. With a Metacritic rating of only 61%, a Steam Store review of where 34% rated it “very bad” and an open investigation for false advertising by the Advertising Standards Authority, the challenge to rebuild the brand was massive.

Hello Games worked hard on an update which was released for their 1-year anniversary, and asked the agency to create a marketing campaign to launch this new update. The challenge was that any new marketing campaign would be received negatively by the audience, any social media initiative would result in a negative amplification of existing consumer frustration and any press coverage will bring back mention of the issues associated with the initial launch.

The Target

The brand targeted two specific audiences: No Man’s Sky’s current fans, who have stuck with the game since its inception and enjoy the product and gaming audiences that shared the game’s values and DNA.

Insights and Strategy

How does one create a successful marketing campaign in the midst of backlash? The brand would have to go beyond just promoting the game with ads or traditional PR. To honour the complexity of the game, the agency created "Waking Titan", an ongoing Alternative Reality Game.

The Plan

To launch it, the team sent tapes to members of the Reddit gaming community which featured hidden messages that could only be deciphered using spectography. All tapes were encrypted with a single word: Portal.

At the same time, the agency aired mysterious radio ads in 16 countries. Each ad advertised a fake company selling a core concept from the No Man’s Sky universe. All the companies had LinkedIn profiles, emails, phone numbers and a website, each containing easter eggs and puzzles that gamers had to solve to become part of the Citizen Science Division.

The campaign culminated with four radio ads which aired during the Howard Stern Show which, when decrypted and combined together, revealed that No Man’s Sky had created the ARG, just to thank its community for standing by them until the long-awaited update was released.

Technology and Tools

The fake company and its ads filled with easter eggs and puzzles were quickly picked up by the gaming community on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and many other gaming discord channels.
The Citizen Science Division was composed of 281,536 players (active puzzle solvers) across 182 countries.

User Experience

With live drops of packages containing puzzles in London, an Escape Room challenge in New York, a live-streamed puzzle on Twitch, interactions with live actors on livestream channels, highly complex puzzles through Artificial Intelligence bots and terminals, the community grew more passionate, positive and excited by the prospect of a new game update.

Supporting Channels

The agency started the campaign with Walkman audio tapes sent to existing No Man’s Sky influencers. The tape led to a series of highly sophisticated puzzles and encryptions. The team also launched a worldwide campaign of mysterious radio ads. 281,536 players across 182 countries solved the puzzle mainly on Reddit but using Twitch, AI bots, terminals, Twitter, Facebook, and many other gaming tools and communities to accomplish their mission.

The Results

No Man's Sky has turned the game’s 87% negative review rating into a 80% positive rating, with press reviews proving equally enthusiastic. There were 281, 536 players totaling 2.7 millions attempts to solve a puzzle. The campaign saw 3.2 million lurker and direct channel views across 182 countries and 17,804 conversations happening across 589 gaming sites. There were 20+ YouTube channels, Twitch channels, Subreddits and Discord servers dedicated to the investigation of this campaign and it was ranked number one played game on Steam.

Return Of Investment

The total campaign costs were covered in the first 24 hours of sales of the new update.