How VOID Interactive Achieved 5 Million Hours Watched for 'Ready or Not'

VOID Interactive's debut game, Ready or Not, achieved immense success, garnering 1.5 million views on Twitch within the first 24 hours of its launch. The remote team at VOID Interactive overcame numerous challenges, thanks to a well-executed creator launch campaign that propelled their game to become one of the most watched titles globally. By 2024, Ready Or Not had risen to the top of the first-person shooter games in terms of popularity, with the developer continuing to release upgrades and updates. Behrad Sabet, VOID Interactive's marketing head, shared insights into the game's successful launch and the company's future direction. With 12 years of marketing experience, Sabet attributed the game's success to its quality, stating that no amount of marketing can compensate for a poor product. He described Ready Or Not as a massive commercial, marketing, and brand success, with the game competing alongside AAA games from established developers and publishers. Ready Or Not was highly anticipated when it exited early access on December 13th, 2023, with VOID Interactive's CEO, Julio Rodriguez, describing it as the 'quintessential tactical FPS for our era'. The marketing team had big goals for the game and trusted the developers to deliver a great product. However, with only a few months to launch and a long list of tasks, the team needed to craft a marketing strategy that would propel the game to the top of the Twitch rankings. VOID Interactive's team, already users of Lurkit's platform, turned to the expertise of Lurkit's customer success team to build an influencer marketing campaign on a AAA level. Lurkit's team presented a plan to engage top content creators within the FPS genre, which would resonate with the target audience. Using their native technology, Lurkit's team scouted for creators that fit the brief and could deliver on the objectives set out. 250 creators accepted the terms and embargo, including streamers such as auronplay, shroud, tarik, summit1g, Papaplatte, Cohhcarnage, and ironmouse. On December 13th, the creators simultaneously started playing Ready or Not, and the audience loved what they saw. With Lurkit as their external marketing partner, Ready Or Not's launch exceeded expectations, debuting at rank three on Twitch and peaking at 55,174 concurrent players on Steam in December 2023. Sabet noted that influencer marketing is the most effective way to reach a larger audience in a short time, having always trusted in its power since his days in the Twitch community. He explained how Lurkit's platform and dedicated support enabled the team to manage large and global campaigns efficiently. The VOID Interactive marketing team had a vast pool of talented creators to partner with, from nano to macro streamers. Sabet shared an anecdote about the overwhelming response from creators, with 7.5K applications received and a backlog that was difficult to manage. The game's launch resulted in 1.5 million hours watched within the first 24 hours, with the total reaching five million hours watched by the end of 2023.