ILoveBees -- A Marketing Story

The wildly popular – and slightly neurotic -- ILoveBees game is winding down, but not because of lagging player participation.

Instead, the game's storyline – which skews the line between a virtual and the real world – will wrap up in the days leading up to Microsoft's much-anticipated release of Halo 2, the sequel to its shooter game that pits Master Sergeant against the Covenant in a science-fiction thriller.

The reason: the alternate-reality ILoveBees was conceived as a marketing campaign to promote Halo 2, according to this Wired News story.

Confused? That's okay. Wired News writer Daniel Terdiman tries to explain.

ILoveBees is the latest and perhaps most ambitious of the growing genre known as alternate-reality games. In it, widely dispersed players coordinate to find and answer thousands of ringing pay phones all across the United States and provide correct answers to recorded questions.

When all the answers have been supplied, the latest episode in an internet-based War of the Worlds-esque radio serial is unlocked and made available to its rabid fans.

The ILoveBee's storyline, though, is a lead-in to Halo 2, allowing players who are eagerly awaiting the game's release to continue existing within the Halo universe. The IloveBees plot is simple: the futuristic war is going badly for Earthlings, and futuristic warriors have come back to the past for help. Players must coordinate online to find clues and solve puzzels, and then track down pay phones throughout the country (supplied with GPS photos) where they will receive more information that is incorporated into the game.

It's a brilliant game. And yet, ILoveBees – while a fascinating stand-alone game – was conceived as a marketing ploy. (Of course, considering its popularity, don't be surprised to see the game continue in some manner or form.)

Halo 2, as it turns out, has needed very little marketing. There have been 1.5 million pre-orders of the game, slated to be released on November 9, according to this story on GameIndustry.biz. This would put the game on track to become the fast selling game of all time.

The original Halo -- which has become the cornerstone game for Microsoft's Xbox – also spawned a series of books, and the game engine is used for the popular Red vs. Blue machinima.