Collectable cups and figurines are passé. iPods are too pricey to give away with hamburger value meals. So what's a fast-food chain to do?

Last month, Burger King execs announced three collectable Xbox games will be sold at the chain's North American restaurants beginning Nov. 19. Pocketbike Racer, Big Bumpin' and Sneak King feature The King and Subservient Chicken, multiple levels and nuanced gaming environments. Each retails for $3.99 with the purchase of a value meal and is rated "E" for everyone.

The games are part of Burger King's increasing emphasis on marketing outside of the traditional broadcast realm. Shortly after chief marketing officer Russ Klein told The Wall Street Journal that TV ad spending has fallen 18%, the company announced a partnership with P.Diddy for a viral campaign on the hip-hop star's YouTube channel.

Until now, the King's only other foray into advergaming was in Fight Night Round 3, as the manager of a Crispin Porter + Bogusky-created boxer named Rey. "It wasn't promoted and we didn't do anything big around it," says the agency's VP and creative director Rob Reilly. "But it proved the King looks good in a video game."

Although the creatives at CP+B had experience thinking up gaming concepts and characters for their risk-taking client, this project would force the agency to work a little harder. Reilly's creative department had four months to turn around three games for a holiday season release date, working in close collaboration with Xbox-maker Microsoft and London-based developer Blitz Games.

Reilly compares the creative process of designing video games to animation. His creatives sat in the motion capture studio with developers to conceive movements suited to the King mascot. "It was definitely a more collaborative effort," he says. "You can't fear getting into these avenues. You have to try it and have a belief that you can do it. Burger King seemingly doesn't have much fear either."