The release of Halo 3 was fervently anticipated, as the game was the third in the original trilogy of the Halo videos. Therefore, the Halo 3 trial download was one of the most downloaded video game demos in the history of the Xbox 360. But what many people don’t realize is that the Halo 3 trial download helped make another game ie Crackdown.
But what does the Halo 3 trial download have to do with any other video game? Well, it has a great deal to do with the sale and promotional effort for a video that was originally planned for playing on the Xbox system. Microsoft had become worried that Crackdown would not sell well.
And so they employed a marketing tactic, the one of bundling Crackdown with an access code to the Halo 3 trial download. And it worked a treat because Crackdown sold 1.5 million copies within the first half year of its release. Those aren’t Halo 3 figures, which sold 8.1 million copies in slightly over a year, but for a lesser well-known game that’s absolutely terrific.
Microsoft had turned to the Halo 3 trial download tactic because of poor opinions about the game from the play testers. They thought the nonlinear nature of the game confusing, often leaving them asking themselves what they were supposed to be doing next.
As a result of this, the powers that be thought that something had to be done or the game would be a dud. It may seem dodgy practice at first to try to force sales of a game that’s expected to be unpopular, but in retrospect people love the game and it was a good thing that they were able to get the chance to play it.
In Crackdown, and that includes the one associated with the Halo 3 free download, people play as an agent who is assigned to beat the kingpins, or leaders, of various gangs. To do this they make use of various superhuman powers such as super strength and super agility. In order to obtain these powers, players have to build up experience by beating foes who then release experience orbs. The clever part of the system was that the kind of orbs released was reliant on the manner in which the agent killed the enemy. For example, a firearms orb appears if the enemy was killed with a gun.
So, although at first sight this video bundled with the Halo 3 trail download seems to be no more than a veiled marketing trick, in reality, it exposed gamers to a fascinating new gameplay world.
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