Warren Buffett's Paper Wizard
Read the story- Brand
- Apple
- Year
- 2019
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Mini-Games
- Platform
- App
- Agency
- TBWA\Media Arts Lab
Objective
Apple wanted to mark Berkshire Hathaway's 2019 shareholder meeting by celebrating its ties to Warren Buffett, the company's largest institutional shareholder and a vocal public supporter. The game turned a running joke between Tim Cook and Buffett into a piece of marketing, reimagining the paper-tossing contest Buffett holds every year at the meeting — itself a callback to his childhood paper route in Omaha. It also let Apple mark the moment with its first original iPhone game since Texas Hold'em in 2008.
Solution
The player rides a bike that pedals itself forward down the street, always looking ahead along the route. They pull back on a rolled-up newspaper sitting at the bottom of the screen and let it fly toward a glowing target up ahead — a porch or a window. Cars and birds cross the path as the ride goes on, and clipping one costs points instead of earning them. Two hand-built stretches carry the player from the sidewalks of Omaha to Apple's campus in Cupertino, with the challenge ramping up along the way, while every good throw adds to a running score of "Warren Bucks" on a leaderboard topped by Buffett himself.
- 1
The player finds the game as a free download in the iOS App Store, with no in-app purchases or paid boosters — the whole game is unlocked from the start.
- 2
A first level sets the player on the residential streets of Omaha, Nebraska, playing a young paperboy who challenges the player to match Warren Buffett's legendary throwing skill.
- 3
The bike moves forward automatically down the route; the player only aims and throws, pulling back a rolled-up newspaper at the bottom of the screen and releasing it toward highlighted porches and windows, with haptic feedback on each throw.
- 4
Landing a paper on a lit-up target scores points in the game's currency, Warren Bucks, while hitting birds or cars that cross the path deducts points, so throws must be timed to the target's distance and threaded through moving obstacles.
- 5
Difficulty escalates as the player advances: each new area introduces its own obstacles and sets targets farther away and narrower to hit.
- 6
A second stage moves the action to Cupertino, California, swapping houses for the windows of high-rise office buildings, and ends with the bike launching into the air E.T.-style so the player throws papers at the glass walls of Apple Park's ring building.
- 7
After completing both routes, the player receives a final score based on accuracy and papers delivered, ranked on a local leaderboard topped by Warren Buffett himself at 15,350 Warren Bucks — the score the game dares players to beat.
