MythByte came to us in 2020 looking for a helping hand with their multiplayer survival game Meiro, off the back of a Kickstarter campaign that never really got off the ground. A small indie studio with a limited budget, they were keen to have another go – but needed some guidance along the way.

“Working together with Game If You Are was the best decision we could have made after our first Kickstarter has failed. Thanks to their great service, very personalized support and strategy, our community has grown explosively, and we are very confident about our next Kickstarter approach!”

Samuel Müller-von Kralik | CEO | MythByte

Project type: Short-term / Consultation | Services: Market research & reporting / Workshop sessions

MythByte had launched a Kickstarter campaign at the start of the year and, like many indie developers, had fallen into the trap of assuming the campaign would generate interest in and of itself. Quickly, they realised that successful crowdfunding campaigns require months of build-up and community development work in advance – so they went back to the drawing board and engaged Game If You Are for help.

We could immediately see that Meiro – a combination of multiplayer survival and puzzle elements, set in a stylish sci-fi world – had plenty of potential. But the game launched on Kickstarter to little fanfare and, after only a handful of pledges in the first couple of days, it was sadly destined to fail despite its obvious quality.

Speaking with MythByte, we recommended that they place a focus on engendering a community of meaningfully engaged and excited players before considering a return to crowdfunding. We helped MythByte to refine their elevator pitch for the game, and reviewed all of their marketing materials and assets – making actionable recommendations for how to measurably improve them within a tight production budget, using research into other similar titles as a basis.

MythByte told us that they had found it difficult to onboard new players into their community. Despite posting regularly on Twitter and hosting a Discord server, they were marketing their product to the same small group of people every time. Over the course of several consultation sessions, we showed the developers some tips and tricks we have learned over the years – helping them to set milestone targets for community growth and engagement, and working with them on devising free or low-cost marketing activities aimed at boosting both follows and social sharing.

We also dug into the studio’s Kickstarter campaign itself. We identified several quick-win opportunities to make the pitch, video, copy and rewards more appealing to players. And we built a plan of action to get more social followers to move across into their Discord server – using the carrot of an exclusive demo to encourage sign-ups to a platform where the developers could engage in a more impactful two-way conversation with their potential superfans.

Quickly, MythByte started to see results. During their first year on Twitter, they had only amassed a few dozen followers – however, within just a few months of our work together they had over 3,000 followers and dozens of likes and retweets a day, and had tripled their active Discord membership.

MythByte now have a solid plan in place and the groundwork achieved for re-launching their Kickstarter campaign in 2021.