Behind the Scenes: A Look Back on the 12 Days of the Spiral Promotion
It’s hard to believe that we’ve already finished our third year of the “12 Days of the Spiral” promotion! Since we started this promotion back in 2011, it is amazing to see how much it has grown and evolved over that timeframe.
We started the 12 Days of Wizard in 2011, but when we launched Pirate in late 2012, the 12 Days of Wizard then had to become the 12 Days of the Spiral. In that first year of having two games for the holiday, we alternated and even shared promotional days between Wizard and Pirate. Finally in 2013, the 12 Days of the Spiral grew into two different events with specific days for both Wizard101 and Pirate101!
As you have seen, every year we introduce a holiday themed charity item to kick off this promotion. These special items help raise money for different organizations in the Austin and Plano areas that are devoted to helping children. I always look forward to the reveal of the charity item as we get closer to the end of the year. Our teams’ creativity never ceases to amaze me with what they come up with for the 12 Days of the Spiral!
We’ve had great items in the past like the Chrismoose and Fa-La-La-Llama mounts, but this year the team really outdid themselves with the creation of the Charity Noelephant. Thanks again to all the players within the Wizard101 and Pirate101 communities that helped us make our charitable contributions by purchasing this mount. The proceeds from the Noelephant allowed us to make $50,000 contribution across three charities: Make-A-Wish® Central & South Texas, Austin Children’s Shelter and the Children’s Medical Center at Legacy in Plano.
Along with the charity item, each year we have tried to offer up a good mix of site promotions, in-game item promotions, new in-game item launches and free goodies for our players. Quite often we have taken our players feedback into account when planning these days and how we execute on them. I see your comments on our message boards, on online fansite forums and on social media. Here are just a few examples of player feedback that have been incorporated into the 12 Days of the Spiral promotion:
- In 2011, players asked for free items to be available longer than just 1 day –> So in 2012 and 2013, we made those free items available until the 12 Days promotion was fully over.
- In 2011 and 2012, some players had problems getting the Mystery Coupons we sent them via email -> So in 2013, we automatically applied the Mystery Coupon to each player’s individual account.
- In 2012, players asked for Free Crowns (when don’t you ask for Free Crowns, ha!) -> So in 2013 for the first time ever, one of the promotional days was a Free Crowns giveaway!
We were pretty excited to be able to offer the Free Crowns day this year! It was a perfect way to cap the 2013 version of the 12 Days of the Spiral promotion. Based on player feedback, I would say that this year was quite the success! We were overwhelmed with all the positive comments and thanks we received from our awesome players! Thank you and I hope you enjoyed spending those Free Crowns!!
Here’s to a great 2014 filled with many Wizard and Pirate adventures!
If you have some ideas for future promotions you’d like to share or have other feedback you’d like to give on our 12 Days of the Spiral promotion, please do so in your comments below. I’m all ears!
Ryan Daniels
Director of Marketing
KingsIsle Blog 
I think that the free crowns giveaway should last for at least 4 days.
I think 5 days of free crowns giveaway
Yeah i missed it just because i had homework to do then got on the next day and i couldn’t get crowns x(
thank you for the free crowns last year i never would have gotten to cyclopes lane without them
You should have the Polar Fox for free! The stats don’t even to match the crown shop one, I’d love the pet just for looks, not stats.
lol, me too, but all the pets I have, have awesome stats and cool looks. I am Emily unicorngem if you wanna hatch 😀
they need to do 12 days of the spiral in summer
Or maybe Christmas in July again, like last year (if KI did Christmas in July last year, I don’t know if they did that last year).
AWESOME I LOVE THIS GAME 🙂
I thought that was the best of week of wizard I had in my life. Thank you I hope you do again this year too.’
oh yes plz continue giving crowns ty! in pirates,i cannot go to blood sholds. in wizard,i can not go to throne room of fire. i want to buy crowns but i do no have visa,
I only got 500 crowns, but I guess it’s just rare to get any higher amount, i mean KI can’t just give like 5000+ crowns to every player, so any quantity is just fair in my opinion 🙂
Thanks for the excitement Kingisle 😀
I only got 250! 😥
now that we can do house tours, please have a week that you bring back past house bundles. I think many would purchase houses that are no longer available. I would gladly purchase the mega bundle and the epic bundle. I love the sultans palace, and the sun palace, but wasn’t playing or was just new when they were available. Please bring them back! Thank you
I think on valentines day we should have free crowns on the 7 of febuary 2014
That’s very kind of you to donate the total currency to three different charities.
i am sad i didnt get any
i agree with everyone else on free crowns days longer but i have three suggestions one i suggest a free pet one that give’s you a spell card two i suggest a free permanent mount not a temporary one and finally three i suggest that you have a free crown giveaway for two days or simply have a contest with three top prizes and a mystery pet (with spell card!) or mount or even just give wizards free exp. as a conselation prize and the contest should last for all 12 days of the spiral (i never really played this game before so this will be my first 12 days! :D)
during the 12 days of spiral, every player in the game can go anywhere for free, all the areas they have been in will be kept opened for them forever (this might be unfair to the people who bought these so maybe they can have crowns back- that can get too complicatted.) so i managed to get to marleybone’s main street that area and all the others that i have to go in prior to get there are fully opened. Thats a merrychristmas! the reason whi i like this idea is because unless youll hspend 24 hours on the game you wont get too far anyway but at least have some more extra places to go to. Its not like you can complete a world (any above marleybone btw the others like krok or wc are too easy.) in 12 days….. just a good thought 🙂
😛 I absolutely love wizard101, its the only game I get to play on the computer and, I wish that the pets didn’t cost so much money, because I tried to hatch with the polar fox and I had a bit of money and, It was heaps! but anyway, wizard101 is the best (Tyler LegendTamer)
and pirate101
I missed the 12 days of spiral free crown hope you do the same in 2014 so I can get the crowns 🙂
I would love if I could buy the Winterglide skates as a seperate mount in crown shop instead of spending many crowns trying to get it out of the Winterland pack since it is the only way.