Muse Dash is one of the most downloaded paid games in China and the USA. This is due to the virality of her TikTok wallpaper

Muse Dash

But about everything in order.

Analyst Daniel Ahmad was the first to raise the story. He said that now it is one of the main premium games in mobile. Its position in the Chinese App Store is 1, and in the US it is 17.

What is Muse Dash?

This is a paid music runner in anime style, which also has adult content (at least on Steam, the game has an 18+ tag). The player controls a girl who beats cats puking rainbow with a guitar, dodges missiles and collects hearts with notes.

所々自分でも分かんないくらいテキトーにやってるけどめちゃくちゃ楽しい#MuseDash pic.twitter.com/aGBRKsqQFP

— tot(よっしー) (@RVX82945586) November 27, 2020

The game was released two years ago on mobile and desktop devices by the Chinese company X.D. Network Inc. Even at the start, she achieved good indicators for a niche game. Its mobile revenue is, according to AppMagic, about $ 3.4 million, and sales on Steam, according to SteamSpy, are up to a million copies.

Despite the good performance, she did not enjoy superpopularity until recently.

Sudden success

The situation changed a couple of weeks ago when the hashtag of the same name (#MuseDash) “started” in TikTok. It all started with videos on which “live” wallpapers with the heroines of the game were shot (the user gets access to them by performing in-game tasks). They attracted the attention of the audience of the social network.

@marlenea23##02 ##zerotwo ##zero2 ##fondodepantalla ##wallpaper ##live ##tiktokviral ##tiktok ##méxico ##fypage ##fyp ##musedash♬ Hai phút hơn – marlene

From creating content with anime girls, the creators quickly moved on to shooting more complex videos. In most of them, they themselves portray heroines, repeat their movements (it turned out to be difficult to find something decent, so look for yourself). But there are other videos where the popularity of the hashtag is ridiculously outplayed.

@cuhwaiiHe love that shit ##thanksgiving ##zerotwo ##musedash ##anime♬ original sound – cuhwaii

The main surge of interest was in China. In the Chinese version of TikTok (Douyin), the hashtag has collected 400 million views. In the west, so far, there are significantly fewer views — about 60 million.

How did it happen?

As we noted a little above, “live” wallpapers played an important role in the viral success of the hashtag. It was they who fascinated some of the users so much that they decided to make videos.

Important: it turned out to be easy to install such wallpapers. To do this, it is enough to install the Wallpaper Engine application via Steam. Free access to the tool allowed us to launch a viral wave of content.

@cynthiaisdeadanother one ? #musedash #anime #wallpaperengine #wallpaper #kawaii #FallGuysMoments #pcsetup #razer #pinksetup♬ Hai phút hơn – marlene

Results

In China, the game jumped from 46th place to 1st position in the top paid games for iOS. In the USA, the game has not previously risen above the 60th place in the gaming top, and now it is consistently in the top twenty.

As for Steam, the game for the first time online rose to the mark of 2000. According to Ahmad, total sales in the store reached 2.4 million.

Wallpaper Engine has also achieved significant success. In the wake of the trend, the application entered the top 10 highest-grossing products on Steam for the period from November 16 to 22, overtaking Total War: Warhammer II and almost catching up with Hades (Muse Dash was not in the top ten).

A look at the top selling SKU’s on Steam for the week ending Nov 22nd, 2020.

This chart is ranked by revenue (Dollar sales).

Note. The Valve Index VR kit is #2 due to this rank being by dollar sales, due to its higher price compared to games. pic.twitter.com/ogXflWdSAv

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) November 22, 2020

What’s next?

XD Network, while there is an opportunity, decided to monetize the sudden success.

First: she made a discount on the game itself and on in-game content.

Second: I started a paid promotion in Douyin. Now the company apparently believes in TikTok as a sales tool. According to Ahmad, the viral success of the heroines brought the publisher about 200 thousand copies of the game sold.