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 
1 free christmas mount or pet
yea this s a good thing
Thx Kingsisle. this game is more than just a “game” to me XD.
can you give out free crowns every year
I will like that
They do, you just have to participate in other activites
wow
Yeah. I totally agree with the free crowns idea for every year, deathaven! I can’t believe that the Charity Noelephant that we gave charities $50,000! It’s so cool how we did that! Way to go, to people who made Wizard101 and Pirate101! You guys made a differences with the charities!
You have an awesome birthday celebration every year! That’s one. You have a great holiday promotion too, That’s two. How about an event that is not holiday related in any way? A Just Because Event? Maybe not near holiday time either, like in the late spring or early summer…before the summer “holidays”? You have contests for writers and crafters and designers and that’s three. So a Just Because Event is, well, just because!
What about on the birthday celebration they give out crowns?
I DID enjoy those free crowns, thank you SOOOO much for everything you’ve done!
have more free crowns!
please can we have free crowns! IM out and want to buy a new gear.
Never!
yea we should get free crowns and get new gear
THE CROWNS WERE SO MUCH BETTER THEN Erikur Axebreaker!
Crowns!
Crowns! please XD
this was a great 2013 12 days of spiral. the only thing you should change is with the free crowns, you should give more crowns if the maximum is 60,000. i only got 1000 while others got 500 or less. so either give more crowns or reduce the maximum possible crowns you can get. cause high crown possiblity equals higher expectations of getting a high number of crowns. but other than that, i’ll let you decide what 2014’s 12 days of spiral will hold. keep up the good work kingsisle.
Awesome!!!! I loved the free crowns and the Noelephant. THANK YOU!!!!!!!! LOL
I hardly got any crowns in 2013 I: But it would be nice to give out free crowns again.
thank you so much kingsisle for all the fun stuff you brought to the spiral WE LOVE YOU KINGSISLE…….LOL
I loved the polar fox pet the best and the free crowns too thanks wizard101!
I want that pet so much xD
Ideas for upcoming 12 Days of the Spiral promotion:
One day only, and only once, players could buy 1 item from the crown shop absolutely free.
Another day could be free reagents-I know I’m always searching for fossils.
I definitely want the coupon and free crowns day to stay 🙂
Another cool promotion could be a new holiday-related spell! Could be the same spell for every school, or school-specific spells.
-I came up with spell names too, just in case 🙂 Storm: Stormbread man, Ice: Jack Frost, Fire: Burning light, Death: Grýla, Myth: Tomte, Life: Rudolf, and Balance: Santa Claws(yes, claws)
On the final day, there could be some sort of portal leading to a location where Pirates and Wizards can unite! I would LOVE to see something like this happen.
Hope you enjoyed reading my ideas, and I hope at least one will be implemented into the game this year :D!
That would be awesome
“Pirates and Wizards can unite! I would LOVE to see something like this happen” l o l unicorn way 🙂
nah rather like khrysalis there should be a world with plants called plananomia that would be awesome!
and sort of a new headmaster named plantmaster he becomes evil and tries to kill lvl 100 wizards
These ideas are awesome especially the new spells one since free playing wizards (especially balance) do not get much spells and quit wizard101 so i think it would be a great idea
That sounds fun actually o_o good ideas are bursting in I see.
next twelve days of the spiral you should make a candy cane dragon.
I think you should give one free pack for Christmas for the 12 days of the spiral.
and new spells like powerpult balance, frankenbunny death, superstrike storm, million earthquake myth, ice-man-freezeeer!, volcano eruption fire, healing attack life.
this game is awesome and i loved the12 or 13 days of christmas 😀
i bought the noelephant mount and it is so cute! i hope that you guys continue to do 12 days of the spiral for years and years to come!
free crowns plz i am stuck at krok (throne room of fire)
We especially enjoyed the 50% off bundles. We purchased 3! Only wish there would have been some way to purchase them and not have them show up right away in our kids accounts. They knew right away one of the gifts they got for Christmas. Otherwise, it was great fun, we looked forward to seeing what you had in store for each day.
I agree 100% We would have bought more if we could delay delivery until Christmas day!!
I would love to see more costumes from the Holiday NPC’s Felix Navidad not just a Santa Suit, Maybe elf suits, reindeer suits,GingerBreadBoy GingerBreadGirl, SnowBoy SnowGirl. Not transformations but actual suits our wizards can wear and purchase for crowns. and ideally see more of the costumes on other NPc’s like Hannah Harvest and Eggbert, Spooky Bob, Pat O’ Gold, Valentina Heartsong. Wizard101 has allot of very Creative People working for them i’m positive they can do this and make the boys and girls enjoy the fantasy of dress up during the holidays more fun.
i wouldn’t limit it to 12 days of the spiral but I would like to see a day occasionally where snack sales are blocked but we could feed our pets all of the built up level one thru four snacks from our backpack no limit to how many or having to do pet games just a get rid of the snacks and level up pets at the same time
a duel with one the game designers
Thank you for the crowns i got a lot of mounts from it! 🙂
I think you should give free mounts (permanent) as a promotion…
Agreed
i would love to see not only new armor in the crown shop but how about some new house items as well maybe things like snow night wall paper with snow covered floor or some santa’s work shop themed items.
It would be great if you gave out free crowns every year and also if you could keep the bundle and pack sales.
Offer more FREE items. Most of the spiral promotions were “sale” items where we could purchase something at a discount. In reality that is no different than the rest of the year. Crowns on sale, membership discounts, etc. The “free” holiday item was very small in comparison. I entered my code and got a wreath!
4 of the 12+1 extra days were free items
Since the beginning, I have picked up every charity mount… except one. The fa la la Lama. I had been through a job change and was experiencing a very harsh holiday. Missing that one holiday mount still bothers me. I think a great promotion would be to offer past charity mounts at a premium crown cost with 100% proceeds going to a children’s organization outside of Texas.
I think a permanent mount in a quest but not a really good one like hydra just a mount
let you change/dye your flag colors
Ok I know it kind of doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas: but Wizard101 really needs to have a chicken pet available in the crown show or a mount cause I know I would definitely buy one if it came out 🙂
Would be possible to have a pet in the crown shop for the holiday to go along with the mount. Every one looks for the yuletide pack to show up to try for the nutcracker pet and the permanent mounts.
I think you should do crowns so can get stuff for our wizards
I think you should give out free crowns to people that have been playing since at least 2010
or at least you should give crowns to those people that dose not have any so they could be happy
man can we have free crowns i need them alot
I enjoy the charity mounts, maybe like the other person suggested with elf gear or a Christmas tree hat like the turkey hat. OH maybe could make a treasure card or spell to morph all the lore master spells into our specific schools like icy catalan for ice but only one card to change all.
Ty for all the wonderful ideas and updating of the game. Please consider giving us clothing for valentines. We ladies want outfits with hearts on them. I have hoped every year you would give us heart clothing. Puhleeze
Hi. I am not sure if you actually do have the time to read all of these comments but if you do, then hear me out. My brother and I have always wanted to be an idea creator for kingslsle. I started out in Wizard101 and now i have moved into the world of Pirate101. I love the imagination and creativity but i have had some ideas of my own. Now i know that your team is working hard already for creating these ideas but whats better than to get a few ideas from a player of the games. I would really love to tell you my ideas so if you could contact me by email I would love to chat. And the best part is that i will do it for Free! haha 😀 i only wish to get these ideas off my chest and to see them form in the 101 Universe. Thank you. Hopefully you will respond. 🙂
Thrilled to see the 50k Charity Noelephant proceeds for children in Texas!
I hope the shelter children get to play with plenty of free crowns 🙂
i think you should give a pet flying fish for the 12 day of spiral
for wizard 101 can you please make a shadow spell themed pack for crowns and and for gold please
i was actually wanting to build my garden a bit more.. it would be cool to have a garden sale like a big one for like 50 to 70% off. that would be awesome! thanks!
i think you should have a christmas quest, like saving santa or something
Well i would say i did enjoy it but I would love it if you guys had one fay of free membership for all the players because not all of us are able to buy membership and would be very grateful if you did that also do the free crowns thing again this year in the 12 days except mind making it a bit more basically something like 1000 to 65000 you get the picture maybe even a game or something where we can even buy stuff from the bundles in the crown shop instead of having to buy the entire thing in my final statement HAVE A GOOD DAY 😛
I love how you made Krampus a real spell I hope you make new Christmas spells and include Snowball strike as one of them
Every year you should make most or even half the worlds free 😀
i want some crowns or gift card in a year
I think Kinsisle should put out more free crown promotions.
can you do many more plant sales!
Please Please make another dungeon for the houses Pagoda and winterbane is awesome but please make at least one more I am begging you it is so amazing to have some dungeons in your house when we run out of a sub or crowns.
Thanks, y’all!
i love the crowns can we do that this I loved that. it think you should also do one free pet for each person thank so much
Crowns! all we ever want are crowns.The most valuable thing in this game.
please bring the 12 days of the spiral again if you do i hope there’s new gifts patrick sea mancer