Sneak King and the Burger King Xbox games for $3.99

Sneak King is the Burger King Xbox game where the chain's mascot creeps up on strangers to hand them food. Blitz Games developed it and King Games published it, and it came out in North America on November 19, 2006. It had two siblings, PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin', and the only place to get any of them was Burger King, at $3.99 each with a value meal. Critics gave Sneak King a 54 on Metacritic. Burger King still said the three discs sold more than 2 million copies in four weeks.

Blitz Games built three games in seven months

The idea started with executives, not designers. Senior Burger King and Microsoft people met at Cannes, and Blitz Games came in because Oliver had asked the manager of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade portfolio to pass on leads from advertisers. Talks began in fall 2005 and development started in February 2006. Burger King kept creative control, because the games were meant to extend its commercials, and it turned down ideas that let players become the King or put him in danger. Blitz's first take on Sneak King was a tile-based puzzle game, and with danger off the table it became a stealth caper in the style of Spy vs Spy, with no human opponents.

Philip Oliver, who ran Blitz, told Gamasutra's Brandon Sheffield in November 2006 that the job was "effectively three original games, two SKUs of each, in seven months." The two SKUs were Xbox and Xbox 360, both on one disc: "two separate masters, two separate sets of assets, on the same disc." Oliver said the team got up to about 60 people. Wikipedia's account puts the start at about 15, and its PocketBike Racer page says Game Developer counted 80 developers across the project.

Not all of it was done in-house. Stainless Games, the studio behind Carmageddon, developed PocketBike Racer under subcontract from Blitz. The King himself was flown to Britain for motion capture, and Blitz's Edward Linley called Sneak King the riskiest game concept of the project. The same page puts Sneak King's code at about 60,000 active lines and 43,000 lines of comments.

Burger King sold three Xbox games for $3.99 in late 2006

The promotion ran in North America from November 19 to December 24, 2006. You paid $3.99 on top of any BK value meal at participating restaurants, and each game was rated E and played online over Xbox Live.

On October 2, 2006, Major Nelson's Xbox blog said a spring rumor about Burger King games looked partly true. An edit to the post confirmed that the games had achievements and Gamerscore.

Sneak King is a stealth game about handing out food

You play the King, and your job is to deliver four kinds of meals to hungry people across four levels: Saw Mill, Cul-De-Sac, Construction Zone and Downtown. Each level has 20 challenges.

The rules come from stealth games. The people you feed have a narrow vision cone, which IGN compared to Metal Gear Solid, and a noise meter shows how loud you are. You approach from behind or jump out of hiding, and the score depends on the target's hunger, your stealth, your distance and your style.

Style is the Flourish. When you present the food, a meter appears and you press the button at the right moment. Half of a level's challenges unlock the next one, and finishing all 80 unlocks an alternate costume. Free-play mode turns off the sight and noise detection, so you can wander around and feed people without a plan.

PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin' filled out the set

PocketBike Racer put the King and his crew on small motorbikes across five tracks, among them a Burger King parking lot and the King's garden. Brooke Burke is on the cover and is a playable racer. It ran four players in split screen or eight over Xbox Live.

Big Bumpin' was a bumper car game with Burger King characters, including the Subservient Chicken, in arenas with names like Ice Box, Broiler and Monsoon of Doom. The arenas have pits and saws, and the power-ups deal specific kinds of damage. It also took four players on one console and eight online.

Two sales totals: 2 million in four weeks, then 2.7 million

On December 21, 2006, Burger King announced that it had sold more than 2 million of the games in four weeks. Russ Klein, its president of global marketing, said most video games are considered a blockbuster at about 1 million sales and that "this collection has achieved twice that." That figure covers all three games together. No source I opened gives a number for Sneak King alone.

In January 2007 the agency behind the campaign, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, said more than 2.7 million games sold in the promotion. The two totals disagree, and the 2 million line is the only one that comes straight from the chain.

Blitz had planned for more. Oliver told Gamasutra before launch that there would be "two million units of each disc," six million in all. In February 2007, Destructoid reported that the price had fallen to $0.99.

Sneak King scored 54 on Metacritic

Metacritic's aggregate is 54 out of 100. IGN gave it 6.7, GameSpot 5.8, GameZone 5 out of 10, GamePro 2 out of 5, 1Up a C and X-Play 1 out of 5. GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann called it a "one-trick pony" with a subversive sense of humor. Critics liked the food-delivery dances and still noted bugs and limited environments.

The other two did a little better. X-Play gave PocketBike Racer 3 out of 5, while IGN ranked it the worst of the three. Big Bumpin' is listed as the best received, with a 7 out of 10 from GameSpot.

Blitz Games closed in 2013

The deal gave Blitz a financial boost that helped fund its Blitz Arcade label. It did not keep the studio open. Blitz Games Studios ceased trading on September 12, 2013, after 23 years, with around 175 jobs lost. Oliver said "the run of problems we've had to face over the last year is unlike any we've seen before."

Questions people ask

Did Sneak King work on the original Xbox?

Yes. Each disc holds a separate version for the original Xbox and one for the Xbox 360, which Oliver described as "two separate masters" on the same disc. Collectors on VGCollect list it as compatible with both.

How much was a Burger King Xbox game?

It was $3.99 with the purchase of a value meal, from November 19 to December 24, 2006, according to the chain's announcement for the price. I have no source for what a copy costs today.

What are the Burger King Xbox games?

There are three: Sneak King, PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin'. All three came out in North America on November 19, 2006, from Blitz Games under the King Games label.

Was Sneak King any good?

Not really, though it missed by a small margin. The Metacritic score of 54 sits under IGN's 6.7 and GameSpot's 5.8, and X-Play's 1 out of 5 is the low mark.

Can you still buy or play them?

The restaurant promotion ended on December 24, 2006. The discs are tracked in collector databases such as VGCollect. I found no current store page for any of the three, so there is nothing to link.