Gasket Basks In The Afterglow Of Fallout 3 Viral Launch For AKQA

To launch Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3 innovative agency AKQA turned to animation and design company Gasket to help produce a series of original promotional commercials seeded as virals and presented on the rollout website.

The site is a carefully rendered retro-futuristic 1950's world as delivered through the screen of a television, complete with spots that represent key content in the game which takes place in the "Capitol Wasteland" in and around Washington DC.

With this innovative approach as the lynchpin of an integrated marketing campaign, Fallout 3 enjoyed record sales at launch, with 4.7 million units of Fallout 3 shipped worldwide in week one, representing retail sales in excess of $300 million.

Gasket, who previously collaborated with AKQA on a series of video game-related projects, was brought in for early production discussions during which time the team was introduced to the intricacies of the world of Fallout 3 including the history of the game.

Integral to the project was the ability to carefully craft material that would reflect this 1950's future-vision aesthetic complete with authentically styled production approaches.

To that end, agency AKQA conducted copious research about era-specific advertising, providing Gasket and the other production partners with a detailed style guide including pacing, line weight, copywriting style and the like.