In a new study, Newzoo dissected the key components to Fall Guys‘ massive success. Key success factors include a deal with Sony, promotion via streamers, viral marketing, and community engagement.
Fall Guys developers used the so-called growth hacking, a set of marketing tools aimed at the rapid growth of the audience and its further retention, usually on smaller budgets.
Free on PS Plus at launch
- Fall Guys became available on the Sony’s subscription service on the day of release on August 4, allowing each subscriber to play the title for free for a month;
- Deals with platform holders has long been used by developers and publishers. In this case, the deal helped Fall Guys reach its initial audience;
- in August, the game’s MAU on PlayStation reached 17.9 million. This allowed Fall Guys to become the second most played game on the console (right after Fortnite);
- At the same time, many Fall Guys players also played free-to-play titles like Fortnite and Apex Legends.
Collaborations with streamers
- small and “weird” projects are often inherently watchable and thus ideal for for promotion on Twitch;
- users like watching the streamer’s reaction to in-game situations, which contributes to engagement and activity in chats;
- On July 24, Mediatonic sent out the codes to popular streamers, a day before the open beta;
- certain streamers enjoy a lot of trust with the audience, which is why the streams of the then unknown Fall Guys attracted many viewers;
- at the start of the beta, streamers sent beta codes to viewers. However, the demand was so great that Mediatonic had to do another beta test for everyone else;
- Fall Guys became the second most popular game on Twitch and YouTube in the first month after release, with a total of 113 million hours viewed.
Viewership on Twitch and YouTube
Success on PC and word of mouth
- Fall Guys quickly grew an audience on Steam thanks to its immense popularity on streaming sites and word of mouth;
- during the first week after its release on PC, the game sold 2 million copies;
- the game was quick to jump in — the average Fall Guys session was 33 minutes;
- just like on consoles, the title’s audience also actively played popular free-to-play games.
Viral marketing and community engagement
- During the beta, the developers asked to retweet the announcement posts in exchange for additional keys;
- Mediatonic managed to quickly amass a large audience in social networks and forums: 1.4 million followers on Twitter, 247 thousand on Discord, and 191 thousand on reddit;
- to retain the audience, the developers directly communicated with the players and came up with various activities;
Attractiveness for brands
- Fall Guys‘ style, accessibility and lack of violence made big brands pay attention to the game;
- KFC, Walmart and even Russia’s Sberbank have already posted their cosmetic designs.;
- this opens up great opportunities for Mediatonic to collaborate with global companies — both with advertisers and charities.