Congested. Lots of players. Lots of brands looking at it as a new toy. The difference with Ryse and XBOX is that there is a real story to be told. A story of a character and a country that has never been told. So before choosing to commit to a new game with an unknown character we decided to introduce his backstory to the world. A backstory that is frought with the murder of his family, lies and deceit from the rulers of the roman empire. This story could not be told in 30 seconds or within the stringent nature of broadcast regulations. It needed to be protected by an age gate and could not run on television due to it's graphic nature.

Since the content was for a mature video game it needed to live behind an age gate. Machinima, a youtube channel with 11 billion monthly minutes watched worldwide, was the exclusive partner for the launch. Machinima, ran pre-roll for 'The Fall' to garner the attention of their large audience. It was also distributed through XBOX LIVE and it's captive audience of over 40 million people worldwide.

Ryse had two business objectives in the launch year of the Xbox One: to sell a lot of games and to establish Xbox One as an entertainment platform. The sales for Ryse were strong over the first 3 weeks as the series was airing, selling over 400,000 units over that time period. That meant that roughly 1/3 of users with an Xbox One also bought Ryse, a truly high attachment rate. From a larger brand perspective, creating quality episodic content brought the game and capabilities of Xbox One to fruition from an entertainment perspective. It gave fans content they desired and it reinforced the entertainment side of Xbox. Over 95% of the comments on YouTube were positive with many asking for “more” than the four five minute episodes that were distributed.