Let's All Be Mayor

Objective

Electronic Arts launched a promotional campaign for SimCity (2013), the franchise's first major release in nearly a decade, to build anticipation before the March 5 game launch. The campaign aimed to demonstrate the game's core innovation—multiplayer regional collaboration—by letting thousands of real players experience collective decision-making as mayors of a shared virtual city.

Solution

Players voted daily over seven consecutive days (12–4pm EST) through March 4, 2013, in a web-based interactive experience to decide how each day's city would develop. On each voting day, participants selected from policy and construction options, with results aggregated in real-time and displayed in a live simulation showing how their collective choices shaped the city's evolution. A new city was featured each day, creating seven independent voting rounds.