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.
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.
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:
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.