Pax Dei
About The Game
Pax Dei is a sandbox MMO developed by Mainframe Industries and co-published by Mainframe Industries and New Tales. Inspired by legends of the medieval era, the vast, social game features a world where myths are real and magic is unquestioned. In Pax Dei, the player can join thousands of others in exploring the land, building a home, forging their reputation, and crafting a unique story.
Region target: North America, Europe
Developer: Mainframe Industries
Publisher: Mainframe Industries & New Tales
Early Access: June 18, 2024
Full Release: October 16, 2025
Platform: PC
Agenda
Early Access
Approach: Bringing a new world to life
What’s the recipe for bringing an open world to life? Simple. Step one, you populate the world with players. Step 2, you give them something to do. That in a nutshell was our entire marketing strategy for Pax Dei’s Early Access campaign and - spoiler alert - it worked like a charm.
To make the first step a reality, we invited creators (both paid and organic) to the world of Pax Dei. We told them to bring their community along and had them give out game keys to smoothen the process. Before you knew it, creators turned their community into clan members as they started gathering resources to construct their village.
For the second step, we provided the creators and their community with some direction in the form of challenges. One day after another, a new challenge dropped that the community could pursue. Essentials first, make sure you can survive and feed yourself. To prove yourself able, kill a badger, a rabbit, a boar, a wolf and a bear (with the help of your clan members), and provide us with a screenshot of each kill. On the second day, the challenge was to get in touch with the flora of the world and study at least ten plants or more. For the next day’s challenge, creators could choose to either craft a piece of armor, track and kill a high profile target or explore the Lyonesse PvP area where they had to kill and loot another player, or simply all of the above. For the final challenge, creators had to showcase the village that they and their clan had built together.
As a reward for completing each challenge, creators were granted Twitch Subs, as well as Master Founder Packs going out to the winners of the Village Beauty Contest.
The main platform of choice for this campaign was Twitch as we wanted to maximize the interactivity with the community in helping to complete the different challenges.
In terms of identifying creators, benchmark game titles were, as per usual, one of our major deciding factors. The benchmarks used for Pax Dei were Black Desert Online, World of Warcraft, New World, Lost Ark, Final XIV, Valheim, Enshrouded, and Nightingale.
Paid Campaign Results
For the paid part of the activation, we worked together with 22 different creators across English, German and French speaking regions. Each creator delivered a total of four one-hour streams to guarantee coverage all throughout the preview week. The results were astounding, with creators delivering at 138% of our estimate and going overtime by more than 2,5 hours on average.
121k cumulated avg CCV on Twitch, with over 392k+ hours watched.
Streamers went 165 minutes into overtime on average.
An additional 216k views were generated from YouTube VOD content.
Organic Campaign Results
From the 407 creators that we sent personalized invites to, 136 responded and a final 71 ended up participating, which equals little over 17% of all contacted creators. Their participation led to an additional coverage of:
41k total CCV on Twitch, with 245k+ hours watched
55k views on YouTube
Key Learnings
We built strong relationships with creators, prioritizing direct communication and tailored interactions. This built trust and enthusiasm, leading to high engagement and positive feedback. Online briefing documents with live updates and FAQs were game-changers for efficiency and transparency.
This led to creators praising the event's organization, the community-driven challenges, and the seamless communication. The campaign fostered organic community engagement, with many creators excited for future collaborations.
Content Highlights:
Full Release
Approach: Reawakening A familiar World
When Mainframe Industries approached us about Pax Dei’s 1.0 launch, the mission felt different. Pax Dei had already lived a full year in Early Access, surrounded by an enthusiastic community and creators who had explored every corner of its world. While this is great in and of itself, there was no “new game smell” and we had to pivot our strategy accordingly. Competing titles crowded the spotlight and the challenge was not just to introduce Pax Dei, but rather to reignite curiosity and show players why the 1.0 update deserved their attention.
Mainframe’s request was straightforward and clear: Bring creators back. Re-engage their communities and prove that Pax Dei 1.0 was worth a second look.
Our task was clear: turn a known world into a rediscovered one.
Our approach was two-pronged. Firstly, we focused on creators who had previously enjoyed Pax Dei during Early Access and invited them to dive back in. Secondly, we used the 1.0 release to awaken the still dormant creators who had not covered Pax Dei before through a targeted organic campaign.
Paid Campaign Results
While the landscape was a lot more crowded due some major releases this time around, we still managed to onboard 90% of the selected creators, resulting in:
23k avg CCV on Twitch
58k+ hours watched
One of the clearest signs of genuine engagement was creator behavior: on average, they streamed 88 minutes more than required, with one creator ( *cough cough* CletusBueford *cough cough* ) adding over 13 extra hours simply because he got hooked and wanted to keep grinding.
We got outstanding performances from creators such as Danneh (clip, clip) and AnnieFuchsia (VOD, VOD), exceeding expectations thanks to highly aligned communities and past experience with Pax Dei.
Their performances reinforced the most important insight: creators were not just delivering, they were enjoying the game.
The Clicks and the “Mistake” that became a Win
Every campaign has surprises… and sometimes they become highlights!
One creator, Gius (clip), accidentally streamed before the embargo lifted due to a misunderstanding. Instead of derailing the plan, he made up for it with an additional stream where he kept inviting his community to join him in-game.
The result? He became the best-performing cost-per-click creator, a reminder of the strength of creator-community chemistry when things get spontaneous.
Organic Campaign Results
The organic portion of the campaign was more modest than our Early Access rollout, and our creator challenges didn’t resonate as strongly this time, timing playing a major role.
TwitchCon, major competitor updates and several overlapping releases made organic participation harder.
Even so, the outreach effort paid off: 306 creators contacted, generating over €25,000 in Earned Media Value and helping keep the conversation alive during a crowded period.
The Conclusions and Learnings
What this campaign taught us:
Early Access hype is unique: a 1.0 release doesn’t automatically recreate that magic.
Twitch was the right home for Pax Dei: familiarity boosted the authenticity and generated more stream time and stronger engagement.
Timing matters: competing updates and events impacted performance more than expected.
Rewards must match expectations: The challenge incentives didn’t land this time, signaling room to rethink our approach.
The game still has pull: creators were happy to return and often played far beyond what was required, a powerful sign of genuine enjoyment.
Content Highlights
