Nike was looking for a way to reach out to consumers who were heavy online gamers and enthusiastic participants in online communities. We created a campaign for Nike in Playstation’s Sony Home virtual world project (Millions of Us was also chosen to be Sony Home’s exclusive North American developer).

Home is essentially an interactive 3D environment on the Playstation that is free to any user with a Playstation connected to the internet. Users can design a custom avatar and interact with other players before jumping into a game. In Home, users navigate through a large common urban center that looks like downtown Tokyo or LA. As users enter buildings they jump to different interactive spaces.

The video at the right is a walk-through of Nike’s space - when online there would be up to 65 avatars in the space at any given time. In the entryway users can browse Nike’s newest clothes and shoes. Through the doorway to the left is a mini-game, the endurance challenge, where users must run a course through varying terrain. By swapping Nike shoes, users affect their performance. Winners of the challenge get prizes such as limited edition Nike shoes for their avatars to wear throughout Home.

To the right in the main space is another mini-game called the basketball challenge where users would compete against other users or against visiting Nike sponsored celebrities and rappers.

As VP of Production, I executive produced all of the Sony Home projects. I oversaw Millions of Us’s team of game designers, 3D artists and engineers (which included resources both locally in Sausalito and offshore in China and Vietnam) and interacted closely with Nike.