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We recently sat down with Kim Janzik, Director of Global Marketing for Xbox to find out more about the Old Spice Challenge and the potential future of the Xbox Live Rewards program.

Game Informer: I guess first off, let’s talk about the Old Spice Challenge. When is it kicking off, and what can gamers on Xbox Live win?

Kim Janzik: We’re kicking off the program on Feb.12, and overall what we’re doing is creating a challenge where our gamers can go and be acknowledged and be rewarded for their accomplishments with various opportunities and prizes. It’s a two-month challenge, and it is a trial program. In that time, there are basically two things. One: Everyone that completes the challenge is eligible to win some digital awards, which include a dash theme, gamer picture—those are things they can kind of use to show their place in the community and their accomplishments. There are limited rewards—roughly 70,000 of them across the community, which include things like a Live Arcade game, a limited number of Microsoft Points, a retail Xbox 360 game and a promotional T-shirt. Depending on where you are within your gaming performance and if you’re one of the first to complete the challenge, you’ll be eligible for those prizes.

GI: Looking at the levels and how everything breaks down, say hypothetically I already have 10,000 Gamerscore points. I still have to get another 1,500 points within that 60-day period to qualify for the prizes, right?

Janzik: That’s correct.


GI: You’re not guaranteed to get prizes if you get the 1,500 points? It’s going to be the first people to get those 1,500 points?

Janzik: That’s correct. So, you are guaranteed to win a dash theme and a gamer picture. What you are not guaranteed to win—unless you’re one of the first roughly 70,000 to complete the challenge—in those cases, that’s when you’re eligible for the Live Arcade game, the Microsoft points, the retail game and the shirt, depending on where you are with your experience.

GI: Do you take the Gamerscore where you start in the 60 days or when you finish after you’ve gotten the 1,500 points.

Janzik: It is where you start in the 60 days.

GI: So why do you think achievements and the Gamerscore are so popular?

Janzik: I think gamers like to show their rank within the community. I think they like to be acknowledged, frankly just within the community, and it is something where they can feel good about what they’ve done. That is gaming at its best, right? All the way back to the original 2D games, people were working to be on the arcade game high-score list. Achievements and Gamerscore are almost an evergreen score list across all the games on the platform. It’s just bringing that passion and that rank within the community to this platform and to this generation.

GI: The Old Spice Experience Challenge is a test bed for the Xbox Live Rewards program. If this works, will all these be sponsor driven, or could these originate from Microsoft.

Janzik: Depending on the results of the program, it could go either way. We’ll see how the results go. I do have a lot of interest in seeing this become successful. We could see this as something which is a challenge along the lines of charity, or a cause that would drive the community in that direction. We could see something that is more game specific, where we would partner with publishers to do rewards along those lines.

We’re just going out there—we’ve done some research and analysis and asked gamers how important it is to be recognized and rewarded beyond just the scores and gamers came back almost unanimously—it was 80-90% saying they wanted to dial up recognition and rewards. They wanted to show not just their gaming friends—which are what achievements and Gamerscore do—but also their extended family, their neighbors—they wanted to have even more to show for their accomplishments in gaming. This program is a trial to see if what they’re telling us can really come to life and extend that gaming accomplishment to the broader community.

GI: Hypothetically, how would this work in the case of charity? Would you spend your Gamerscore points, or have some sort of account, I guess?

Janzik: You could imagine, again, the theme of get these types of achievements or increase your Gamerscore in this time period and a certain amount of money will be sent to one of these three charities of your choice. I’m just hypothetically making something up. Or it could be, you and your friends together grow your Gamerscore, get this many achievements, and we’ll send something to certain charities in support of your gaming accomplishments.

GI: Are you thinking about fund-raising drives for schools?

Janzik: We’re thinking about a lot of different things, be it schools or various causes during certain times of the year, right? There are certain awareness months where we might tie into those. There’s a fair amount of flexibility there, and we would like to see this grow over time. The Old Spice Experience Challenge is the first trial to see how that goes, and depending on the success and what we learn from this program we’d like to go from there.

GI: Will the levels carry over to the next contest, and how well you did on this challenge be posted anywhere on your Gamer Card?

Janzik: The levels will carry over to the next contest, assuming we do have subsequent challenges. In fact, one of the rewards per se that you can earn out of the Old Spice Experience Challenge is if you do complete the challenge, and do complete the 1,500 Gamerscore achievement points in the two months, you’re automatically given a level bump to the next level, should there be a future challenge. So if you were in level 1 and you complete the challenge and we have another challenge after this, you’ll start at level 2 automatically just because you completed the first challenge.

GI: Now, if all of the prizes are gone, you’ll still retain your level?

Janzik: Yes, you will still retain your level. In regards to your question about the Gamer Card, your level will not appear on your Gamer Card initially.

GI: So, hypothetically, you said that you might work with specific publishers or just specific games, for that matter. Microsoft is releasing a potentially big hit later this year called Halo 3. What could you potentially envision basing this around Halo 3?

Janzik: (Laughs) Very good question. We’re not privy to certain achievements that might be built into that game, for example, but we would work with the studio to create a challenge around the appropriate achievement where certain gamers did get that achievement—whether it’s an early achievement or a later achievement, I don’t know, but they get a certain reward.

The great thing about this program is it does allow for a fair amount of flexibility to make it fun for the community and give gamers the ability to show off those accomplishments and build a lot of excitement around the games.

GI: Is this for gold members only?

Janzik: This is actually for any member. In this case, we wanted to open it up to the broader community and make it as inclusive as possible.

GI: Now that Vista has shipped, Microsoft is going to be doing Live for Vista and you’ll have one gamer tag across 360 and PC. Are you thinking about bringing this over to Vista as well if it’s successful?

Janzik: I think anything is possible. Assuming its successful, I’d love to see it grow into that Vista gaming arena.

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