Christmas brand games
Advent calendars, Santa trackers and December worlds: the games brands made for the Christmas season, from Google and McDonald's to Cartier.
By year: 2006 1 · 2010 1 · 2011 2 · 2012 1 · 2013 1 · 2014 7 · 2015 2 · 2018 2 · 2019 2 · 2020 4 · 2021 3 · 2022 5 · 2023 6 · 2024 4 · 2025 1
These are games made for the Christmas season: advent calendars, Santa trackers, December worlds inside apps and Roblox, and holiday microsites from luxury houses. Each was timed to the shopping calendar and gave the player rules and an outcome. Winter campaigns without a Christmas hook, and Lunar New Year games, are left out.
The longest-running is Google's Santa Tracker, a December calendar of mini-games that ends with Santa's route on Christmas Eve; the 2013 and 2015 editions can still be played. Restaurant brands use the season to bring people back every day. McDonald's X-MASters turned its Dutch app into a calendar of games and drew 200,000 players, and Burger King's BK Village gave Royal Perks members a deal a day from a snowy 3D town.
Advent calendars recur more than any other format, and they mostly report registrations rather than sales: Alka Insurance's 2024 calendar logged more than 1.2 million. Coca-Cola's Snowball Effect with 7-Eleven is one of the few with a sales figure, a 20% lift in Coke sales at the chain. Luxury houses use the season for short arcade games: Hermès, Cartier, Gucci and Ralph Lauren have each made one.
In the Journal: Christmas marketing campaigns people played: 10 brand games
The top 10
Santa Tracker
Google's December calendar: a new house of games opens each day until Santa sets off on Christmas Eve. Still playable.
X-MASters
A calendar of mini-games inside McDonald's Dutch app, 1 to 23 December: 200,000 players, and the country's most popular app for three weeks by its creative directors' account.
Snowball Effect
Snowball fights between Facebook friends, played on phones with 7-Eleven: Coke sales at the chain up 20%, and $700,000 raised for Arctic Home.
Holiday Dash
A holiday runner on Roblox: 7.7 million visits in three months. The 2024 sequel put QR codes in Amazon's printed gift book.
Christmas Calendar
A Danish insurer's daily December quiz about the mishaps of a fictional family: more than 1.2 million registrations in 2024.
BK Village
A snowy 3D town for Royal Perks members, with a deal in the mailbox each day of December and Burger King's first advent calendar behind it.
The Fabulous Journey
A browser arcade game for Cartier's 2023 holiday campaign: 300,000 players and 2.1 million minutes played.
Game Of Phones
A holiday game finished by more than 400,000 players, who then directed T-Mobile's $100,000 donation between three charities.
Christmas Shopper Simulator
GAME's parody of clumsy simulator games, set in a shopping centre at Christmas: more than 1 million downloads and 36 million YouTube views.
Data Piñata
Christmas falls in summer in New Zealand, so 2degrees offered piñatas to whack for free mobile data instead of a price cut: more than 280,000 winners in the first season.
All 43 games
PlayablePlayable
Merci-MichelThe Gang
PlayableTool
PlayableReflektor Digital
Playable
PlayableAQuest
LostmechanicsThis Page AmsterdamPlayable
UNIT9Bascule Inc.
Upperquad
Taxi StudioPlayerthreeFlaq Digital
Sony Pictures InteractiveTed Perez And AssociatesGreyCP+B
SpecialmovesMonks
LivewireTBWA\NEBOKO
Digital Arts Network
Merci-Michel
Lostmechanics
Studio Meta
Playable nowAranjaPlayable now
CRCR
Questions
What are the best Christmas marketing campaigns built around games?
Among those with figures behind them: Coca-Cola's Snowball Effect (a 20% lift in Coke sales at 7-Eleven), McDonald's X-MASters (200,000 players) and Amazon's Holiday Dash on Roblox (7.7 million visits in three months). Google's Santa Tracker has returned every December and can still be played.
When should a Christmas game launch?
Many in this collection open in late November or on 1 December and run to Christmas Eve or into early January. Advent calendars start on 1 December by design; Burger King's Xbox promotion ran from 19 November to 24 December 2006, and McDonald's Netherlands ran Getaway Island from early December into January.
Do advent calendars count as games?
When each door opens a game with rules and an outcome, yes. Calendars of quizzes, drop games and mini-games are among the most common Christmas formats here; Søstrene Grene's 2022 calendar drew 263,239 registrations and added 30,544 newsletter subscribers in a month.
Which Christmas brand games can you still play?
Google's Santa Tracker editions from 2013 and 2015, and Golden Agri-Resources' Merry Match, still open. The rest were seasonal and have closed; their pages keep the screens, video and results.