Measuring the Impact of Creator Programs

The influencer marketing landscape has undergone significant changes over the past 15 years, evolving from a novel approach to a crucial component of game launches and content updates. While developers and publishers recognize the potential of influencer marketing, quantifying its impact remains a challenge. A spike in sales may occur when a content creator's gameplay goes viral, but understanding the overall value of investing in an influencer activation is often unclear. Using live service titles as an example, a strategic creator program can yield an annual Earned Media Value of $20 million. This is achieved through long-term partnerships with creators, extending beyond a single activation or title. Our analysis is based on 1.2 billion data points compiled daily from a database of nearly 130 million influencers, as well as our experience in designing and evaluating performance marketing campaigns. While no single campaign strategy is universally applicable, our findings demonstrate the potential of a well-deployed activation to transform a title's landscape. Creator programs, a relatively new concept, offer more than just game keys to their members, encouraging creators to invest in a non-transactional relationship with a studio or publisher. To estimate the $20 million valuation in annual EMV, we modeled a dataset based on 500 potential creator program targets for live service games on Twitch, as well as anonymized retention data from multiple creator program members. Earned Media Value represents the estimated value of content generated by creators through streams, videos, and social media posts. Our approach involved modeling streamer behavior based on average monthly streaming durations, shifts in viewership, and seasonal trends. The cost per viewer hour metric was derived from historical influencer rates, adjusted to reflect the nature of unpaid activities. A creator program's impact can be measured on a genre-by-genre basis, allowing for comparison with a game's potential for organic engagement. Our data outlines the potential gains for a title, demonstrating that creator program members stream 80% more content on average from the relevant game after joining a program. This is remarkable value, given that content creators often plan their time with a game on a contractual basis. Our data also finds that creator programs have a 14% higher content retention rate than non-program creators, which is beneficial for titles experiencing a decline in influencer content mid-update cycle. Creator programs also facilitate cross-title pollination, where a creator plays multiple titles from a portfolio. Members of a creator program have a 70% cross-pollination rate, compared to 12% for creators outside the program. The ideal use case for creator programs is supporting games between milestone updates and activations. They are particularly effective for boosting the tail ends of a game update, as creator program members are more likely to stick around and continue creating content due to their investment in the game's community. To maximize the benefits of creator programs, it's essential to use them strategically. Prioritizing partners based solely on views can be costly and shortsighted. Instead, consider the following strategies: Identify suitable creators for your title, considering factors beyond total views, such as unique audience reach and retention. Foster non-transactional relationships by providing access to beta knowledge, direct lines to developers for feedback, and other ways to initiate long-term dialogue. Establish a creator program at the right time, securing the necessary bandwidth to manage and communicate with creators. Be mindful of key do's and don'ts when launching a creator program, such as building trust and transparency, supporting creators in their events and initiatives, and avoiding assumptions that creators will always work for free. By dedicating the necessary resources, creator programs can yield a tangible return on investment, substantially extending a title's longevity and bolstering engagement with a portfolio, while sustaining a community of creators that can drive genuine passion for a game's community for years to come.