Highroad Communications

CLIENT

Microsoft Home and Entertainment Games for Windows: Dungeon Siege - New Microsoft PC Games Title Lays Siege on Canada

THE CHALLENGE

Microsoft Canada was preparing to launch its highly-anticipated new PC game, Dungeon Siege, into the Canadian market. Some good buzz had been built for Dungeon Siege prior to the launch, and the goal was to make a big splash to secure mainstream coverage for the game. High Road stepped up to provide a big-picture strategy to help Microsoft Canada achieve its goal of increasing awareness about the hot new game.

THE STRATEGY

As luck would have it, the creator of Dungeon Siege, gaming visionary Chris Taylor, was actually a fellow Canadian originating from Surrey, B.C. High Road leveraged Taylor's Canadian roots, while highlighting the overall Canadian contribution to the $6 billion video game industry. Also, by using Taylor's early start into gaming as an Asteroids video game champ at a local Surrey arcade, High Road was able to provide a colorful local angle to the bigger video game industry story that helped drive coverage for the game title. Taylor also agreed to meet fans at two game signings, one in downtown Vancouver and one in Surrey, providing a strong visual opportunity for both large national media outlets and smaller local papers.

THE RESULTS

The event was a tremendous success with print, broadcast and online media coverage of Taylor's homecoming and of Dungeon Siege. Through its aggressive outreach, High Road secured solid media coverage of the events through CHUM's CKVR, the Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, Electric Playground, Global TV, Futurelooks.com, the Surrey Leader, and BC Gamer. In addition, High Road secured live in-studio interviews on CFOX's morning show and Dotto on Data. The events reached over 1 million Canadians through the targeted media strategy. As part of High Road's broader outreach, Dungeon Siege was also profiled in outlets across Canada including the Edmonton Sun, Canoe/Infiniti.ca, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Le Soleil, Micro.Info and Musique Plus.