CASE STUDY

How Soulmask became a hit at Next Fest and climbed the top-seller charts on Steam

RESULTS

500k+ copies sold

Soulmask was also a top #5 seller on Steam on launch weekend

3.8M hours watched

Strong presence on Twitch in the first 30 days after launch

12M video views

AAA-level viewership on YouTube in the first 30 days after launch

Company overview

Qooland Games is a global developer and publisher of PC and mobile games. Their development and publishing games include titles such as Sword Chronicles: Awaken and Soul Mask. They are dedicated to providing players around the world with enjoyable and engaging games.

Game overview

Escaping a deadly sacrificial ritual, you find an ancient mystical mask on your journey. This mask holds potent knowledge, changing the world you knew. Face the harsh challenges of nature, survive, rally followers, and build your own tribe. Explore and unveil the truths behind the enigmatic mask.

Products used

Marketing Insights, Key Campaign, Paid Quests, Assisted Service

The Challenge:

Soulmask is an open world survival crafting game developed by CampFire Studio and published by Qooland Games. It's was a brand new IP with barely any digital footprint in the gaming world. The publisher Qooland Games was also a bit new to the Western market and had to earn legitimacy among players. Western gamers tend to shy away from games coming from Asian market, especially if the publisher behind the game is not that well known, which was the case here.

This meant, not only Soulmask but also Qooland had to build a reputation to show gamers they're building an awesome sandbox game that prioritizes an authentic survival experience and that they are here to stay and support players for good. And what better way than reliable content creators to boost the game's visibility by playing the demo first during Next Fest, and then at launch too, right? As you can guess, this is where Lurkit came into play and helped Qooland Games over-achieve its goals!

The Solution:

Qooland Games used Lurkit's insights and analytics platform to identify the right creator cohorts across the world and created a strategy for mass coverage for their demo release at Steam Next Fest - February 2024 edition. They also opted to get assisted service from Lurkit to run their Next Fest campaign more effectively.

A strong key art often helps convincing a player after they encounter a game on Twitch or YouTube

Through this partnership, Lurkit's expert team managed a part of the creator activations before and during the February 2024 Next Fest and created an in-depth performance report, showcasing which creators performed greatly, which regions/markets resonated with what Soulmask had to offer and how the early access release plans should go.

After seeing how well Lurkit's team managed their Next Fest campaign, Qooland entrusted Lurkit with ideation and management of Soulmask's creator marketing for early access. Lurkit heavily focused on NA, UK, German and French markets to boos visibility, engagement, and sales of Soulmask at EA launch.

The Results

Steam Next Fest - February 2024 Edition

470k+

Hours of demo gameplay during Next Fest

164k

Hours watched on Twitch during Next Fest

500+

Content creators on Twitch and YouTube during Next Fest

‍

This was the very first major activation the two parties performed and the results spoke for itself. Over 500 content creators across Twitch and YouTube created content around Soulmask's Next Fest demo, about 100 directly joining the campaign organically through Lurkit's key campaign. The games media also showed great interest in Soulmask, producing about 130 articles for it.

Soulmask joined the event with a demo that offered around 40 hours of meaningful gameplay and became #13 most played demo of the Next Fest. It was also one of the most watched demos on Twitch with over 160k+ hours watched. All of this helped game's wishlist ranking increase by over 400 places and accumulated over 470k hours of gameplay.

Soulmask's Twitch performance during the Next Fest

Qooland Games also used this opportunity to gather valuable feedback from both key creators and players they earned through this activation to better their game as early access release was soon upon them. You can check out their Next Fest appreciation post to see how well they've listened to their community and responded lightning fast.

Early Access Launch

400k

Copies sold on Steam in 50 days

3.8M

Hours watched on Twitch within the first 30 days

12M

Views on YouTube within the first 30 days

650k

Hours watched on Twitch directly through Lurkit

1.2M

Views on Youtube directly through Lurkit

7.5k

Content creators on Twitch and YouTube

‍

The hardest task at hand was to carry over the hype and anticipation earned at Next Fest to the early access launch, which was 3,5 months away. CampFire and Qooland did an excellent job keeping communications warm and meaningful with both content creators and players. Meanwhile Lurkit planned the creator activation strategy for the early access launch, negotiated prices with key creators and onboarded hundreds of non-paid creators in the western countries to go live when the embargo was lifted.

When the time came for Soulmask's EA launch, both parties were completely ready for action and with backup plans to keep things flexible. Soulmask was an immediate hit as it sold more than 400k copies within the first 50 days and even ranked #1 on Steam's top sellers for a short period, and kept a top #5 place for the first three days of launch.

Soulmask sold another 100k copies since hitting 400k milestone

During the launch window, Lurkit made 18 paid creator activations and supported it with 550+ organic creator activations. This resulted in 650k+ hours watched on Twitch and 1,2M views on Youtube directly through Lurkit, helping Soulmask show strong presence when it mattered the most, at launch window.

Lurkit also made sure Soulmask had creator coverage on Twitch at all times to keep the flames going, and made sure both YouTube and TikTok had more than enough quality content when players looked elsewhere to be convinced to give the game a chance.

Major Update #1 and #2

Since its early access launch, Soulmask received two major updates, which brought back many content creators and encouraged existing creators to produce more content around the game and its content drops. The publisher used Lurkit again to amass strong viewership and turn it into sales.

Soulmask now sold over 500k copies since its early access launch and sits at "very positive" on Steam with 81% approval rate while amassing over 11k reviews across the world.

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