Mastering the Hype Balance

The Challenge & Solution

Butterscotch Shenanigans is a critically acclaimed videogame studio founded in 2012 by the three brothers: Seth Coster, Sam Coster, and Adam Coster (who is running his own “Coffee with Butterscotch” podcast). Inspired to go indie, they created the hit survival-adventure game Crashlands, which found tremendous success in China, accounting for around 80% of its sales and traffic. This laid the foundation for developing a direct sequel - Crashlands 2.

The story of the sequel picks up after the events of the first game, with new environments, gameplay mechanics, and narrative elements to explore. It retains the quirky humor and charming aesthetic that made Crashlands so beloved.

When we began our collaboration with Butterscotch Games on Crashlands 2 in February 2024, our shared efforts achieved significant success, growing the official channel by 20k new followers, BUT it also brought considerable challenge…

One of our main challenges was managing the community’s excitement over the extended pre-release period. With over a year until launch, goal was to maintain the interest and hype.

Instead of constantly pushing new content, we chose a steady approach. During quieter times with no major game updates, we lowered the frequency of published content.

We engaged the community with fun activities like quizzes, fan art contests, and even meme competitions.

One of the posts on the channel, over 12,000.

Impact & Results

Butterscotch’s Bilibili channel was essential, especially during times when there wasn’t much new game news. Even with a 4-month period without new videos, already released videos reached over 70,000 more views, thanks to active community management.

Growth of views on the channel between October and January

By translating materials, creating custom videos and graphics, and building an active community hub, we kept the channel lively. This maintained brand awareness ensured that old fans remained interested in Crashlands 2 during the long wait, and new fans were able to find a hub rich in great content.

Balanced content strategy that we have chosen with Butterscotch paid off, allowing to maintain high levels of engagement throughout the year-long pre-release period:

Follower Growth on Bilibili: Increased from 5,000 to 25,000 (500% increase), creating a hub and Butterscotch’s asset in Chinese Social Media.

Wishlists from China: More than doubled through the year due to clear communication and growing hype on the Chinese Social Media

Daily Engagement: Over 100 comments per day from dedicated community members, showing great interest in the game's development.

Influencer Support: Positive reactions from 50 key influencers who received early access to the release date, helped to share the news and are looking forward to recording videos during launch period.

Growth of fans over time, prior to the announcement