To generate attention, Everspace relied on influencers. However, a lot of money was sunk into “bad streamers.” The developers express this in a casual tone.
Developers want to attract attention with their games. What is increasingly failing through ordinary advertising is often possible through “influencers,” such as YouTubers or Twitch streamers. Therefore, developers turn to specialized agencies that then connect them with streamers who play their game for a period of time for pay.
If the streamer has a large audience, developers reach a vast number of potential new players.
However, care should be taken when selecting streamers to ensure they are not “damn idiots.”
The Everspace developers learned this lesson. They had commissioned an agency to find streamers suitable for marketing the game.
“The most expensive stream we paid for was €5,000 per hour, and we had to book him for two hours. His opening line was, ‘I have to stop playing Destiny 2 now,’ because I’m now on a sponsored stream to play a space game, even though I don’t like space games.”
It didn’t end there, because according to Michael Schade, one of the developers, “he [the streamer] played like an idiot, like a damn idiot.”
No wonder Schade sees it as a “disaster” and certainly not helpful for Everspace.
Of the 20 YouTubers and influencers that Everspace paid, only 3 to 5 were good and worked. The rest were okay or disastrous.
Trolls want to be fed, are good PR
Basically, Everspace is good at leveraging social media – and they do not shy away from methods that might be termed “fake news” in Germany.
For instance, there was a picture on Twitter and Facebook showing a crowd of people in front of the entrance to the indie fair “Rezzed.” The developers commented on this with, “So many sci-fi fans can’t wait to finally play Everspace on PS4” – which was brutally false. Probably only a few people in the picture knew what Everspace was at that moment or that it would be represented at the fair.
On Twitter, the pic didn’t bring much. Schade says, however, that it went viral on Facebook and generated 725,000 views.
Aside from that, Everspace is now focusing more on smaller streamers and is experiencing greater growth than if they had paid larger influencers.
Feed the trolls and let the community do the work
By the way, Schade sees trolls as the best marketing friends. “Often trolls say something that they haven’t fully thought through, or it’s just provocative, but that fuels the discussion. That means more traffic, and more traffic means more visibility on platforms that are traffic-based.”
His tip: “Feed the trolls.” When negative reactions come, one should retreat and let the community do the work. This is what happened to Everspace with a negative review from YouTuber “Total Biscuit.” He didn’t like the game, but gave Everspace a lot of free traffic on Steam and Reddit.
At least it seems the developers and marketing people of Everspace have “understood the Internet” and how to attract attention.
What kind of successes “good” streamers can achieve is illustrated by “Ninja” – who earns $500,000 every month.
