Tag: superbowl

Start Slacking Off with MrBeast’s Million Dollar Puzzle Hunt

February 8, 2026 / Michael Andersen / 0 Comments

Salesforce’s Super Bowl commercial with a $1M prize – that’s a lot of potential puzzles

During the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl Salesforce released a TV spot promising a $1M prize to the first to solve a puzzle hunt in collaboration with Jimmy Donaldson, who runs the MrBeast YouTube channel and media empire. The commercial itself, centering around Slack’s “Slackbot” assistant, is a veritable whirlwind of codes and references, culminating in a bird’s eye view of a QR code driving to MrBeast.Salesforce.com. Luckily, early teaser content linked on the Million Dollar Puzzle page helps point prospective solvers to a few helpful starting points to help make sense of the seemingly herculean puzzling task.

Behind the scenes with Lone Shark Games’ Mike Selinker, holding a book that’s likely Puzzlecraft

Lone Shark Games confirmed their involvement in helping design puzzles for the event. And while this is the company’s first Super Bowl commercial, they have developed a number of high profile, spectacle-laden puzzle experiences in the past. Wired enlisted them to help run a month long nationwide manhunt for one of their journalists. Cards Against Humanity turned to them for a puzzle hunt leading to a safe filled with hundreds of thousands of Sloth cards locked up on a remote island whimsically renamed “Hawaii 2”. The company even took over the third floor of Washington DC’s Planet Word Museum to create Lexicon Lane, a series of 26 separate puzzle adventures making use of the same space.

Luckily, the contest site implies MrBeast and Lone Shark Games’ penchant for spectacle should continue through this puzzle hunt, noting that “clues are everywhere: videos, websites, and the real world. Anytime you see MrBeast with Salesforce, assume there’s something there.”

A scene from Salesforce’s teaser spot for the SuperBowl ad, with a playlist of videos in the comments

Road to the Big Game: Setting the Stage for a Puzzle Hunt

It all started with a tweet: back in December, Donaldson tweeted out a request: “I’ve been sitting on an amazing Super Bowl commercial idea for years. I know it’s random but someone please let me make your brand’s Super Bowl commercial so I can finally make this idea happen”. Shortly after, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff replied, offering up their commercial. This kicked off a flurry of promotional teasers. Donaldson then shared a behind the scenes look at his pitch process. His employees discussed how they use Slack (a Salesforce product) as a pillar of their content production processes. Donaldson even made a Freleng Door Gag inspired video teasing the spectacle of the upcoming spot, as well as a teaser commercial themed around taking the $1M prize money out of the bank.

The $1M puzzle hunt may have only officially kicked off with Salesforce’s fourth quarter ad spot, but those videos contained more than a few clues to give astute puzzlers a head start on the solving. Some of these leads (including the name of Donaldson’s fictional bank) appear to be red herrings. An extended acrostic that flashes in one spot, for instance, teases solvers with the message “this means nothing I just wanted to waste your time lol”. But other moments seem considerably more intentional. Why is there a conspicuously placed barcode on the armored tank receiving a parking violation, during Donaldson’s bank visit? And why does the teller have a series of dates circled in red on all of her desk calendars?

The real entry point to the puzzling, however, is a pinned comment on the teaser video linking to a playlist of nine past MrBeast videos. The pinned comment on each of those videos now links to a series of variety puzzles.

For example, a comment on Beast Philanthropy’s Changing the Lives of 600 Strangers video directs puzzlers to a Sudoku variant puzzle posted on Reddit, using the nine letters in LIF(E)CHANGE instead of numbers. Solving that grid on its own doesn’t lead to any additional instructions…but is there a different piece of information that can instruct solvers on which letters to pay attention to?

Filling the Reddit Sudoku variant grid alone doesn’t seem to be enough to solve this puzzle…

Solving the variety puzzle is only the first step of this particular puzzle. And while all the information to solve the puzzle could be provided in the initial image, information on which letters to select from the completed 9×9 grid might also emerge through other parts of the campaign. And that guidance could come from practically anywhere: supplemental videos, other puzzles, or even some as-yet-unrevealed real world spectacle.

As for the Super Bowl spot itself? It seems to be as much a guide for how to discover where to find the puzzles, as much as anything else.

Monsters vs Aliens Invades the Superbowl

January 25, 2009 / Michael Andersen

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new alternate reality game promoting DreamWorks’ new animated film, Monsters vs. Aliens. This article announces an update of gigantic proportions.

Since our last article, players discovered the existence of Dr. Harold Filkenheimer, an eccentric and ethically flexible researcher at DARGenetech International with a quirky sense of humor. The comical Dr. Filkenheimer carries a grudge against Jeffrey Freedman, and he needs our help to discredit the gullible conspiracy theorist. On Superbowl Sunday, Harold Filkenheimer is going to activate the Abstract Recrimination Generator (or A.R.G.) to “use our most devious black ops skills to create a mass media propaganda campaign to turn the tables on those who would accuse us of problematic things.” Apparently, he will need the “l33t sk1llz” of those skilled with A.R.G.

Dr. Filkehnheimer sent a coded message to players instructing them to “[c]ommence the attack against top secret conspiracy on 1st fish February 2009 convincing public truth all part campaign marketing evidence we planted to discredit him Super Bowl 43.”

According to an article on the Variety website, DreamWorks purchased a 90-second 3-D advertisement for Monsters vs. Aliens during the SuperBowl. In preparation, DreamWorks is giving away 150 million pairs of glasses at 28,000 retail locations. You can also request a pair of glasses by calling 1-800-646-2904. Will the extended trailer lead to something else? Only time will tell. So grab your chicken wings and be on the lookout for something suspicious during the Superbowl.

Go Steelers!

Editor’s note: The aforementioned support of the Steelers is the view of the author and is not in any way representative of the views of ARGNet. ARGNet supports both teams, especially the Cardinals, because everybody loves a Cinderella story. 🙂

ARG Netcast, Episode 12

February 13, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

Episode 12 of the ARG Netcast series is supersized! Why, you might ask? The answer lies within the netcast itself, with three monster discussions on ginormous topics that found their way into this week’s agenda. So, if you don’t want to hear about how the Receda Cube was found in Perplex City, or how the Deus City creative team has responded to one of their players, or about the true meaning of This Is Not A Game, then stay away! However, for those interested, listen in as the panel consisting of Jackie Kerr, Jessica Price Brooke Thompson, Sean C. Stacey and Jonathan Waite and first-time panelist Nicko Demeter discuss these topics, and more. Note: we’re having substantial problems with audio lately, so we’re sorry for the quality of this netcast, which is not the best. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

Oh joyous day, the Receda Cube has been found! Of course, we talk about the center of attention in the Perplex City game, which officially ended (Season One, anyway) with the discovery of the Cube by Andy Darley, an admired and loved Unfiction forums member (Rand0m). Darley writes about his adventure here, and here. Also, here and here. Finally, here is the end of his tale. He’s a great storyteller. Aside from Darley’s discovery, we dish on how clues might have been given to one particular group and not the overall player base, and wonder why Violet was Combed Thunderclap, and how she knew about quirkyacuity.com months in advance of the site being registered.
Deus City has responded to a player who offered suggestions, help and bug reports by asking her to leave the game, citing Terms of Service violations. We’ve got the details! We also discuss how players might become confused by the gameplay, given that two of the characters in the game are real people.

ARG Netcast, Episode 11

February 6, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

So, after hours of post-recording edits for Episode 11 of the ARG Netcast series, the audio quality for one side of the conversation is terrible at best. Don’t let that dissuade you from listening though, as this week’s roundtable is as entertaining as it is informative. Regular panelists Brooke Thompson, Jackie Kerr, Sean C. Stacey and Jonathan Waite are joined this week by Jessica Price, ARGNet writer and Unfiction forums moderator. Subscribe to the ARG Netcast feed through FeedBurner or via iTunes.

Game News

The Heroes 360 experience moves along, albeit very slowly. There is a lovely player wiki (yarr, there be spoilers) that has been created, so hopefully the game gains a bit more momentum, soon. Also, see this Blogspot page for more (spoilers ahoy!) information.
Meigeist is getting love from afar. They also have a nifty player wiki which will get you caught up in less time than you can say “Save the cat, save the world.” Although, you’d sound silly saying that.
Perplex City players are pretty darn close to finding that cube, we hear. Something about a rock, and a Jurassic… something. They also have some pretty cool plans for the reward money.
Monster Hunter Club explains away some advertising, and characters show up at the Today show.
Puzzle of the week: A grid puzzle needs reconstruction (and deconstruction) for Monster Hunter Club. See this thread at the Unfiction forums for more details.
The VirtuQuest people send us a response to our questions about Township Heights. Jackie weighs in on the “mildly insulting” situation. Then the rest of the panel piles on.
Check out this beautiful mock-up (totally unofficial, we understand) of the Neowin-Unfiction branded AMD chip. This will apparently be possible thanks to the winner of the meta puzzle of the Vanishing Point game. Neowin/Unfiction for the win! We also report on the now-postponed VP post-game chat with 42 Entertainment, so ignore that part when you get to it.
Studio Cypher will be releasing the fourth chapter in their Multiplayer Novel soon, called High Stakes.
Jessica talks about her experiences with Ravenchase, which you can also read about in her outstanding ARGNet article.
Jane McGonical is going to be the first ever female keynote speaker at the Game Developer’s Conference in March. We couldn’t be happier for Jane and wish her the best!
ARGFest is less than a month away.
We let the cat out of the bag about ARGNet’s partnership with SXSW for the Screenburn festival. Details will be released in the coming weeks. Brooke will be speaking at the conference, for those who can make it.

Tag: superbowl

Start Slacking Off with MrBeast’s Million Dollar Puzzle Hunt

Road to the Big Game: Setting the Stage for a Puzzle Hunt

Monsters vs Aliens Invades the Superbowl

ARG Netcast, Episode 12

ARG Netcast, Episode 11

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