EA Games needed to defend against the onslaught of PubG, Fortnite and other free-to-play shooters by re-engaging core Battlefield fans to build cult level interest ahead of the launch of Battlefield V.

Typically, video game launch success is determined by the impact and voice of the core fans. As micro-influencers, their voices resonating and amplifying with the broader public is what drives real demand.

We needed to go one step further and demonstrate a direct attribution to Battlefield V sales from this engagement over a 5-month pre-launch period. With zero media budget.

Launching a new video game is complex.

Like movie premieres, success is often determined by the impact and voice of core fans. As micro-influencers, their voices resonating and amplifying with the public drives demand and long-term player engagement.

To launch World War II shooter Battlefield V, EA Games needed to re-ignite core fans. With over 1 billion YouTube views of fan-created Battlefield Easter Egg videos from past games (more views than all previous Battlefield launch trailers combined), we knew how to engage these hardcore gamers – by giving them a tantalising secret to unravel.

That secret: Operation Enigma - a top-secret, multi-platform Alternate Reality Game (ARG) involving 60 unique puzzles, hidden across 30 different channels in 7 languages.

The campaign started 5 months before Battlefield V’s launch, with secrets and clues for our obsessive audiences to find, follow, figure out and share, spreading the message of Battlefield V for us.

Attribution was mission-critical to proving success.

Our strategy was especially complex given we hid puzzles, clues and challenges across 30 different technology platforms across the internet. For 5 months, players Shazamed trailers in YouTube, found secret messages inside sheet music within Spotify, found clues at historic WWII destinations through Google Maps and used real spycraft techniques like steganography to reveal messages hidden within Wikipedia.

Every interaction was designed to produce measurable structured or unstructured data that enabled personalized responses based on where players were in their journey. We developed a new way to orchestrate this through a Universal EA-ID which allowed us to personalize 40,000 individuals across 30 channels.

The Universal EA-ID also enabled the orchestration of those individual experiences to drive a collective global narrative whereby secrets and puzzles could only be unlocked through group collaboration. Through this we turned what would have been unknown engaged players into known, actionable, single customer records.

Launched in complete secrecy, with zero media budget, Operation Enigma immersed 40,000 micro-influencers into the ultimate top-secret mission.

To uncover elements of the Battlefield V storyline, and win trips to Germany, Japan and other historic WWII destination featured in-game, our audience had to use real spycraft techniques like steganography to reveal messages hidden in images, and morse code to decipher audio recordings, and ultimately solve a real WWII Enigma code using a simulator of an actual Enigma machine.

Positioned across 30 different channels including Discord, Reddit, Spotify, Google Maps, YouTube and Wikipedia, challenges were hidden in plain sight. But even after being found, they could only be completed by players working together, ensuring conversation and engagement among core fans around the world.

For 5 months, players interacted with chat-bot-powered 'agents', Shazamed trailers, and decoded ciphers within augmented reality lenses. They found secret messages in sheet music and dove deep into the source code of Battlefield.com. They even had to turned off their adblockers and hunt for banner ads, where additional clues and puzzles were embedded in the HTML code of campaign assets.

To communicate with players on a one-to-one level, we developed an AI-powered ‘secret agent’ using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to read and respond to player messages, enabling genuinely personal experiences for players across 7 different languages. This also allowed us to facilitate a global collective narrative whereby secrets and puzzles could only be unlocked through group collaboration.

Re-ignited by the operation, our 40,000 micro-influencers generated over 7.3m impressions, comments and shares over the 5-month period. All with zero media spend.

The campaign broke pre-order records, with 35% of gamers who engaged with the mission converting to sale, delivering an ROI of 287% and making Operation Enigma the most effective marketing activation in the franchise's history.

Our 40,000 micro-influencers generated over 7.3m impressions, comments and shares over the 5-month period. All with zero media spend.

But better yet, because we collected, linked and tracked every participant to a unique EA-ID we were able to close the loop in attribution. This revealed that 35% of gamers who engaged with the Operation Enigma pre-ordered Battlefield V ahead of launch, delivering an ROI of 287%, making this the most effective marketing activation in the franchise's history.