Jiri Kupiainen discusses alternative user acquisition strategies for games, highlighting strategies used by No Man's Sky, Ben and Ed, and Best Fiends. Some key lessons include using influencers strategically by creating influencer-specific content, having influencers review early builds to generate authentic reactions, and vetting influencer videos to ensure they feel genuine. Working with top influencers and getting coverage from big media outlets can help games reach broader audiences through trickle-down effects. Authenticity and trust are important to avoid backlash from inaccurate representations of games.

1. Alternative
user acquisition strategies
Jiri Kupiainen
CEO @ Matchmade

2. Background
Games & tech since 2001
• Mobile, PC, console, media…
• Founded first company at 17
• Previous company acquired by Disney
• Youngest Disney VP!
• Founder & CEO at Shark Punch
• The Masterplan
• Playfield
• Matchmade

3. Getting featured by Apple
is not a user acquisition
strategy

4. LTV > CAC = Kč

5. CPI ≈ $0
• Featuring
• Community
• Social
• Word of mouth
• Influencers
• Media

7. The No Man’s Sky
UA Strategy
• Textebene 1
• Textebene 2
• Textebene 3
• Textebene 4
• Textebene 5

11. The Ben and Ed
UA Strategy

15. The Best Fiends
UA Strategy

17. Other companies doing it right

18. Lessons

19. Game
design
Target
audience
Marketing
& UA

20. Trickle-down
marketing
• If you get the big guys, others will follow
• Seriously paid key influencers to make videos
• Now >100k videos on YouTube
• Sluggerfly used 9GAG to grow their reach
• Free visibility on Imgur, Reddit…
• Reaching out to YouTube influencers with “people on
9GAG love us”
• Hello Games got big games media hyped up
• And then everyone else had to talk about it

21. Working with
Influencers
• Seriously and Sluggerfly hiding easter eggs in their
games
• Get influencers talking
• Get people sharing
• Traplight and Bossa Studios creating influencer-specific
content
• Cheap for the developer
• Creates authentic positive reactions
• Several videos with the same influencer
• If the audience overlap is big, this can be
tremendously valuable for both

22. Authenticity &
Trust
• We failed this with The Masterplan...
• No Man’s Sky
• Inaccurate representation of the game
• Disappearing when things didn’t go as expected
• Ben and Ed
• Not obfuscating the fact that they’re the games
developers
• ...but not making it front and center either
• Best Fiends
• Influencers have creative control, but they vet every
video
• If it doesn’t feel genuine, video doesn’t get published

23. Working with
Influencers
• Direct contact
• Lot of work, but can yield great results
• Hard to predict - influencers don’t reply to emails
• Famebit etc.
• Still very manual
• Low relevance
• MCNs & agents
• Little transparency & often very expensive
• Matchmade
• Several kinds of awesome

24. Thank you!
jiri@matchmade.tv
@jiri on Twitter
https://matchmade.tv/