Ultimate Staredown
- Brand
- UFC
- Year
- 2019
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Mini-Games
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- SLIK
Objective
UFC needed to keep fans engaged in the run-up to a big fight and turn that engagement into extra eyeballs on fight night. The staredown itself — one of the most-watched, most volatile moments of any UFC promo cycle — was the natural hook: hand fans the tension of that face-off instead of just showing it to them.
Solution
The player opens the site, grants camera access, and picks an opponent from the UFC roster. That fighter fills the screen in a locked, unblinking stare while a live feed of the player's own face runs alongside it. From there it's a timed face-off: the game reads the player's expression and pits it against the fighter's, and holding or matching the required emotion is the only way to win the staredown. A win unlocks a tougher fighter next; a loss ends the round on the spot. Throughout, the camera stitches the player's reactions into a short time-lapse clip they can share to social, with results also landing on a public leaderboard. The whole thing runs the same way on a phone as it does on a laptop.
Results
50,000+ plays in launch week.
- 1
Players land on a dedicated browser microsite inviting them into a virtual staredown against UFC fighters, with a single button to begin.
- 2
The game requires camera access to play — a laptop webcam or a smartphone's front camera — since the player's own face is the entire input; the full experience runs on mobile as well as desktop.
- 3
Players pick an opponent from a roster of UFC fighters.
- 4
The face-off screen puts a retouched photo of the fighter's face on a body, with subtle motion to keep the stare feeling alive, set opposite a live feed of the player's own camera.
- 5
Each round is a timed reaction test: the opponent holds a target facial expression, and the player has a few seconds to match it and out-do it with their own expression.
- 6
Winning a staredown advances the player to the next fighter, bigger and heavier than the last, with difficulty climbing from bout to bout.
- 7
The camera captures the player's grimacing throughout and compiles it into a short timelapse clip that can be shared to social media, while the result is logged to a leaderboard ranking the player against other participants.
