BITBOX DRIVES LIFE IS FEUDAL:
MMO PRE-ORDER SALES WITH
XSOLLA PARTNER NETWORK
To sustain its successful Life is Feudal franchise, the team at Bitbox needed a way to accelerate early adoption of Life is Feudal: MMO during its closed beta.
They could rely upon the sizable gamer community of their earlier title, Life is Feudal: Your Own, for a strong initial spike of pre-orders – but for their new sandbox MMORPG to truly be successful, they needed to expand their audience beyond existing players. Also, as closed beta servers were only periodically open for a week or two at a time, it was vital to get lots of new players interested and keep the conversation going between sessions.
Moscow-based Bitbox – world-building RPG success story.
Bitbox, Ltd. is a developer and publisher of medieval-era simulation games, specifically their Life is Feudal series. In September 2014, Bitbox’s five-person team launched its first title, Life is Feudal: Your Own, as an early access release. Within two weeks, it made it onto Steam's “Top Ten” list and went on to sell over 100,000 copies. This initial success helped drive them toward the larger goal of completing Life is Feudal: MMO.
By November 2016, Bitbox had already built a steady and trusted partnership with Xsolla, having integrated with Xsolla Pay Station to receive payments from around the world. But Bitbox knew that to translate the success of their first title and Life is Feudal: MMO’s closed beta into a self-sustaining juggernaut, they needed to be ready for the challenges ahead.
AT A GLANCE
Together, Bitbox and Xsolla developed a pilot project — a tool to help them capture and manage affiliate network marketing opportunities with no upfront costs.
Bitbox created a revenue-sharing program with customizable attributes, such as audience specifications for potential participants. They enabled Xsolla’s directory of 50+ affiliate networks to opt in and leverage their audiences through original, engaging gaming content centered around Life is Feudal: MMO. Tagged links included with the content drove attributable sales traffic to Bitbox’s Xsolla Site Builder-powered website, where pre-orders could be purchased.
Bitbox’s previous Xsolla integration, plus its integration with this powerful new tool — Xsolla Partner Network — include:
USER ACQUISITION
- Developed revenue-sharing model to entice interest affiliate networks.
- Handled legal and technical issues to connect with affiliate networks.
- Built intuitive, data-driven interface to manage revenue-sharing program.
- Generated tracking links to accurately attribute affiliate-driven sales.
PRE-ORDERS
- Developed custom, branded website to showcase game elements.
- Offered multiple Founders Packs with varied pre-order package options.
- Acted as Merchant of Record to calculate and distribute revenue shares.
PAYMENTS
- Enabled localized payment methods at checkout, from 700+ available globally.
- Let players save payment method data and preferences for future payments.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
- Enabled partner to create and manage multiple subscription plans.
- Helped partner customize billing and renewal details for each individual plan.
- Let players set up subscription auto-renewal using available payment methods.
LOGIN
- Captured trafficking data for analytics and marketing strategy development.
LAUNCHER
- Enabled partner to optimize content delivery using DRM-free distribution.
Products used
What began as an audacious user acquisition experiment became a notable pre-sale success for Bitbox – and the basis for one of Xsolla’s newer flagship tools.
By the end of Bitbox’s affiliate network revenue-sharing program, Xsolla tabulated more than 6,000 attributed sales that brought in more than $210,000 in revenue to Bitbox’s cash flow. More importantly, the program’s content-driven marketing efforts successfully drove valuable interest in for Life is Feudal: MMO from a new wave of paying players, growing the Life is Feudal gamer community and expanding a ready audience for future titles.