New Blood's ULTRAKILL PC Giveaway Drew 14,457 Entrants

For its 10th birthday, New Blood Interactive gave away a one-of-a-kind custom ULTRAKILL PC built with Ironside Computers. 14,457 people entered.

It was one of 35 Gleam campaigns New Blood has run in nine years. The prizes are usually its own merchandise and free games, picked because its community actually cares about them.

New Blood is the studio behind ULTRAKILL, DUSK, Gloomwood, Faith: The Unholy Trinity, Amid Evil, and Blood West.

Dave Oshry, New Blood’s CEO, said:

“Our game ULTRAKILL is very very popular and people want free stuff. We use these giveaways to bulk up our social follows and email list and don’t have to spend much in return, just give away some merchandise and free games. It’s a win-win. Gleam makes it easy.”

New Blood Since 2014

Dave Oshry, Aaron Alexander, and Kreyg DeZago founded New Blood Interactive in 2014. Its games borrow from the shooters of the late 1990s and add modern movement, fast combat, and stylized art.

The team talks to its players directly on Discord, Steam, Twitter, and YouTube.

How the Giveaway Performed

The giveaway drew 14,457 Entrants, who completed about 13 Actions each.

Most traffic came direct, 39,684 Impressions in all, and those visitors completed about two thirds of all Actions. Twitter was the strongest referral source, and about 43% of the people it sent entered.

The three most completed Actions all sent people somewhere New Blood or Ironside could sell to them:

• Check out the Anniversary Steam Sale: 23,405

• Visit the Ironside PC site: 22,287

• Shop the New Blood store: 21,498

1,426 Entrants, about 10%, shared their Viral Share link.

Almost half of all Entrants were in the United States, followed by the UK, Canada, Australia, and Brazil.

An ULTRAKILL PC as the Prize

An ULTRAKILL PC appeals most to the people New Blood wants to reach, PC gamers who already play ULTRAKILL and other retro FPS games.

The Ironside partnership meant New Blood could offer a premium prize without paying for all of it. Ironside’s own Action, a visit to its PC site, was completed 22,287 times.

One Mailchimp List

New Blood’s campaigns include social follow, YouTube and newsletter sign-up Actions.

As Dave puts it:

“We use Mailchimp by putting all the emails from each giveaway into our mailing list and hope people don’t unsub. Sorry we’re not fancy with our insights.”

That’s all the setup there is, with no automation or segmentation.

Key Growth Takeaways

New Blood keeps its giveaways cheap and its prizes close to its games. So what can another game studio take from its ULTRAKILL PC?

• Theme the prize on your own game. New Blood themed the PC on ULTRAKILL, its best-known game, so the prize spoke to people who already play it.

• Bring in a hardware partner. Ironside shared the cost of the PC and got a visit Action of its own on the entry form. Pitch a PC builder whose buyers already play your games.

• Make your Steam sale an Action. Check out the Anniversary Steam Sale was the most completed Action, at 23,405. Time your giveaway with a sale and add a visit Action that links to it.

• Post the giveaway on Twitter. Twitter was New Blood’s strongest referral source, and its Impressions converted at about 43%, about twice the campaign’s rate. Share the link wherever your players already talk to you.

• Turn on Viral Share. About one in ten of New Blood’s Entrants shared their Viral Share link. Add the Viral Share Action so fans bring other fans in.