Piet Mondriaan, one of the founders of the De Stijl movement and an artist for which we have a particular appreciation, was born on this day in 1872. Mondriaan, or Mondrian as he was more commonly known, was an influence on art and aesthetic for the entirety of the 20th century, long after his death in 1944. From stained glass windows to dresses designed by Yves St. Laurent, the simple elegance of “color blocks” remains one of the most recognizable, striking, and yet elegant design patterns. His art continues to have a strong influence across all artistic mediums to this day, including games. For this, what would be his 149th birthday, Lantana Games teamed up with Smart Egg to deliver our most exciting and successful cross-promotional collaboration to date.

Believe it or not, Smart Egg approached us just a couple weeks ago. They have a board game called Mondrian Blocks which obviously struck our interest. The game is a deceivingly simple “puzzlegame” which gives players an initial setup of black rectangles to place on a board, which then must be filled in with the remaining red, blue, and yellow rectangles. With Piet’s birthday fast approaching, we decided a cross-promotional celebration with some giveaways would be the most fun thing we could do. We set up a free Gleam.io page to keep things as simple and inexpensive as possible, agreeing that of the six functions available in the free package, three would go to Smart Egg (Twitter, Instagram, Website) and three would go to Lantana Games (Twitch, Youtube, Facebook). We had no idea just how successful this campaign would be with just a modicum of daily effort.

As of writing, the contest has around 100 users and 500-some entries to win a free copy of Mondrian – Plastic Reality and Mondrian Blocks. Gleam.io is all about following social channels, and the resulting growth from this contest has been statistically noticeable. But don’t take my word for it, here’s some numbers breakdown, according to SocialBlade.

YouTube:

  • 2/28 – 92 subscribers
  • 3/7 – 103 subscribers
  • Total: +11.9%
  • Pretty good growth for a YouTube channel that isn’t really focused on being a “creator” and more of just a library for our videos, but I guess we have to do a 100 subscriber special video now!

Facebook:

  • 2/28 – 796 likes
  • 3/7 – 806 likes
  • Total: +1.2%
  • Small but okay growth. We are MUCH less focused on Facebook these days than we were a decade ago, as algorithm changes in that time have made it less useful for both bringing in new fans, and even connecting with current fans without paying.

Twitch:

  • 2/28 – 29 followers
  • 3/7 – 92 followers
  • Total: +217%
  • This I cannot explain. We haven’t streamed in over a year and we nearly now have the numbers to qualify for Affiliate. The best I can guess is that Gleam has Twitch-appeal, meaning users on Twitch are likely to sign up for Gleam contests to try to win stuff on stream. It could also be that our community had been following us everywhere BUT Twitch, likely due to our inactivity. Still, this tripling of our follower-count puts pressure on us to finally create a strategy around streaming.

Even though our Twitter not linked on the Gleam contest, we still saw a small jump.

Twitter:

  • 2/28 – 1155 followers
  • 3/7 – 1170 followers
  • Total: +1.3%
  • Similar growth to Facebook. This can be attributed more to recent game industry events rather than the contest, but one or two likely still came from hearing about us via the contest posts.

Our Instagram had a Net-0 change during this time. We did lose two followers, but quickly gained two back.

So now the big question: how did our Steam page do? Obviously the Steam page wasn’t linked on the Gleam contest, so users would have to view our profiles to find the link, or search for the game. According to Steam, we had 1830 impressions, with 1799 from non-owners; 612 views, with 595 from non-owners; and a 33% click through rate. Compare that to the previous week, where we had 1554 impressions, with 1538 from non-owners; 539 views, with 532 from non-owners; and a 34% CTR.

That’s also a pretty decent jump. As expected, though, this did not result in any sales, as users are likely waiting to see the results of the contest. That being said, even with Steam’s stats having a little bit of lag, we did get a handful of Wishlist additions, which is nice!

What’s the takeaway here? As is quickly being seen by a lot of people around the globe, “generalized” social media channels like Facebook and Twitter see little benefit from the effort one puts in to grow. More specialized, visual channels however, like Youtube, Twitch, or even Instagram, Snapchat, and dare we say TikTok, are quickly taking over as the go-to places for building community.

Speaking purely anecdotally, I have noticed that the games industry is short on ideas when it comes to marketing and growth. Discord comes up a lot, but you still have to get users into your Discord (by the way, join our Discord). Streaming is the hot new thing, but there is a lot of risk to sift through before you are able to find those one or two streamers who will actually play your game. What I often don’t see talked about is collaborative marketing and cross-promotional deals, and it boggles my mind as to why. If a player is interested in your game because of the genre, topic, or style, it stands to reason that they would be interested in another game that shares some of those traits. In fact, when looking for publishers, developers contact ones with portfolios that have similar products to their own. In my opinion, one of the strongest marketing channels developers need to access is other developers working on similar games – even across digital and tabletop like with the Mondrian games – to help boost their own visibility. If you have things to give away – copies of your game, signed posters, pairs of socks, etc. – contests don’t hurt at all, and running a contest that benefits both developers delivers moderate, positive results.

All things considered, we would do this again, and as a paid campaign. Seeing how far both Lantana and Smart Egg were able to take this contest just on a free Gleam.io account, and the paid version specifically includes features for Steam and Discord, we could see a lot of benefit to upgrading our campaigns in the future.

Many thanks to Smart Egg for approaching us and helping to make this happen. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out Mondrian Blocks on Amazon, and give them a follow. Once again, Happy Birthday Piet, and we can’t wait to cook up something colorfully epic for your 150th!!!

– Danny