Viral advertising and alternate reality games
The promotional campaign for the Xbox 360 began on March 30, 2005, with the opening of an
alternate reality game called
OurColony. Throughout March and April OurColony.net offered challenges to its community, rewarding solutions with cropped pictures of the console and game screenshots. On May 12, 2005, the ARG section of OurColony closed, visitors were instead greeted with a promotional video hosted by
J. Allard. OurColony participants were allowed special access to insider info and previews before release to the general public.