Pancake Week, a festival-sale of games by Eastern European developers, was held on Steam from March 8 to 14. It was initiated and organized by Meta Publishing. We talked with Ilya Salamatov and Ilya Grabelnikov, top managers of the publishing house, about how the sale was being prepared and held.
Alexander Semenov, Chief Reactor App2Top.ru : Tell us, how big was the festival?
Ilya Salamatov, CEO at META Publishing
Salamatov: He was big. No less than other major festivals, not counting those directly organized by Steam itself. And definitely the largest, organized by one company.
It lasted a week — from March 8 to March 14. During this time, we received almost all the important “features”, including Instant Message (this is a pop-up window in the Steam client), which we were given over the weekend. At the same time, all participants felt a tangible boost both in vishlists and in purchases.
By the way, we did not just organize the festival, we also provided the event with a marketing budget, support for streamers, and the press.
How did the idea come up to organize an event about Maslenitsa on Steam?
Salamatov: The idea to organize the event came to Ilya Grabelnikov, our director of publishing and digital distribution.
Then we began to think: what can unite the Russian-speaking community of developers at the Steam festival, but at the same time it will be “educational” for the rest of the world (they say, learn more about Slavic traditions) and quite neutral.
Maslenitsa was perfect!
Plus, everything coincided with the dates: the dates of the holiday, and the fact that Steam itself had no major events planned for this period, and the fact that we had time (quite a bit, but had) to prepare.
How difficult was it to get in touch with Steam and convince them to launch the event, how did they perceive it at all?
Ilya Grabelnikov, Director of Digital Distribution and Publishing
Grabelnikov: We have been working with Steam for many years and quite tightly. It was easy to get in touch. It was difficult to explain the meaning and significance of Maslenitsa as an event, to explain why developers from the former CIS are ready to take part in this event.
An additional complication was that all external English sources that could be referred to associate Maslenitsa as a deeply religious holiday. We wanted to associate it with another and, in our opinion, the main essence: farewell to winter.
It was possible to explain how bears, balalaika, pancakes and farewell to winter are connected, although not from the first time. So in the end, the Steam idea seemed very interesting, new and exciting. Moreover, no one had previously organized events for post-CIS developers on the site, although the idea was in the air.
After that, we were warned that all the functionality of such promotions is difficult to handle, is in beta, is rarely used by third-party teams and anything can happen when working with it.
When organizing the event, Steam helped a lot, answered all the difficult questions and explained how and what works.
What were Steam’s requirements for you as a company and as an organizer for the event?
Grabelnikov: The main requirement for us was simple: you take on everything from the organization of the participating developers to the art, approvals and answers to the questions of the participants (by the way, there were a lot of them). We also had to take on the issues of promoting the event itself, organizing the sale page, news. We also had to provide (within a certain time frame) lists of participants and additional information about them.
Initially, Steam did not agree to provide us with additional promotion and a “special discount”, which was necessary for many, since a large percentage of games took part in the “Moon Day Sale“. Fortunately, we quickly resolved this issue with Steam, so our participants were able to arrange sales both on the “Moon Day” and on Pancake Week. Moreover, we managed to convince Steam to support the event with the Daily Deal (in the middle of the festival) and IM (before the weekend).
There were no questions to us as a company that can do this, as well as legal issues, since we have known each other for a very long time and honor the rules and procedures of the site.
How much time did it take to prepare and what was it on your part?
Salamatov: We allocated a budget and conducted a fairly massive marketing campaign, which was prepared for more than a month (it was necessary to quickly “assemble” processes tailored for the festival, and not for the usual edition of games). Of course, the preparation also consisted in the fact that we processed applications, prepared promo-arts, videos, creatives, the very page of the festival. We also talked with developers, listened to their requests and wishes, in fact, we were a full-fledged support service.
How were the applications collected?
Salamatov: In telegram channels, as well as in personal communication. Applications were added to the open Google spreadsheet. Everything was organized as convenient as possible for the participants.
I saw that after the action, some publishers wrote in frustration on Facebook that they had not been warned about the action. What happened, why was there a misunderstanding?
Salamatov: The organization of festivals is not our direct activity, we are still focused on publishing. Nevertheless, we tried to be as inclusive as possible, so the news about the set of games was always going on in one of the largest Telegram communities, where developers and publishers of PC games sit. Actually, all publishers are represented there.
Further, participation or non-participation in the festival was already a matter of priorities and tactics for discounts, sales. If someone didn’t want to participate, then we automatically assumed that it didn’t beat their discount plans.
In other words, there was no conscious idea to drag someone and restrict someone.
Well, what was the most difficult thing during the event?
Salamatov: The most difficult thing was to interact with developers (in terms of the number of requests processed).
This is the main difficulty of such events. With each individual developer, you need to build a separate management plan, as well as be a support service, psychological help, I don’t know, a second mom, and so on.
Yes, that’s why we deliberately did not confuse the collection of applications on App2Top or DTF resources, because we needed to withstand the high quality of the content offered by Steam and at the same time not go crazy from the management of applications in which it was possible to drown at some point (especially if we try to please everyone).
How much traffic did the event get?
Grabelnikov: We are still collecting the final data, but we can say for sure that more than 650 thousand people visited the sale page. These are those who reacted to the event on Steam and went to its page from the event (excluding those who went from the main Pancake Week banner or from IM).
We are still waiting for data from Steam on the number of visits to the sale page itself, since only they have this data. According to our traffic measurements, more than 3 million people “clicked” on the banner. Considering that we had Daily Deal and IM, we are sure that the total number of visits was close to 4 million.
We are also very pleased with the data we receive from publishers and developers who took part in the event. Many of them had a noticeable increase in “vishlist” and sales.
All this suggests that a huge layer of work on the organization of the festival was not done in vain.
I would like to thank all the participants of the festival once again for the projects provided, the META Publishing team for sleepless nights and dozens of hours of work on the festival, as well as our contractors, Happy Fox, for the wonderful art for the festival.
How do you assess the overall experience of the event?
Salamatov: Despite the fact that it took a huge effort of the team, as well as certain marketing budgets, we are very satisfied. And first of all, not our own results, but the fact that all the developers who participated in the event were satisfied. In this regard, the experience turned out to be very positive.
Grabelnikov: Our plans will say better than words here. We are already coordinating the next 2022 festival with Steam. We will make it much bigger and we will be glad if new teams and publishers join us. Together we are a force!
What did you end up dissatisfied with, what should have been done differently?
Salamatov: In the future, we will collect applications earlier, better inform the community and agree in advance on all the maximum possible feature options.
Can you give advice to those who want to hold a similar action — where to start and what should be prepared for?
Salamatov: Similar actions are already being held – the same last year’s festival from Indie Cup or DevGAMM.
There is one piece of advice here — try to allocate a strong team for this event. It will take a lot of nerves, while periodically it will be necessary to adequately cope with force majeure.