Over 80% of players using creator codes are new to the platform; influence overwhelmingly concentrated on top creators

Game codes distributed by content creators to their community drive significant additional revenue for game storefronts, according to new research by provider Tebex, although its data pointed to the impact being overwhelmingly driven by a small number of top-tier creators.

The study, which analysed over 1.5 million creator-backed transactions by 635,000 players over a period lasting a little over two years, found that 80.4% of players using creator codes did so on their first ever purchase and half completed that purchase on the same day they joined the platform. Tebex asserts that this proves that creators are directly driving new business, rather than cannibalising sales that would have taken place anyway.

The firm also found that creator-issued codes were associated with much higher spend, with mobile webstore basket value increasing by 93% when a creator code is applied, from an average value of $27 to $52.

That impact was overwhelmingly confined to top-tier creators, though. The top 100 creators covered by the data, who represented only 1.6% of the total creator count, drove 75.9% of total gross merchandise value (GMV) of all the games tracked. A single unnamed creator accounted for $4.9M. The report characterised this as a rebuttal to the theory that multiple micro-influencers are able to outperform fewer large ones, although it noted that smaller "long-tail" creators nevertheless dominated in specific geographic markets, providing things like community interaction and localised translation that benefited game operators.

The outsize influence of a small number of creators was further emphasised by 87.4% of players only ever using one creator's code. Half of the codes tracked in the data did not confer any discount, either, pointing to codes as a means of players demonstrating loyalty and support to a creator rather than purely coupons to drive sales.

The study noted that the creator ecosystem was most developed in Minecraft, with almost 30% ot total gross merchandise value (GMV) on the platform being attributable to creators. The largest opportunity was Rockstar-owned GTA 5 roleplay platform FiveM, which had a total GMV of $366.9M of which only 3.9% was attributable to creators. The study described FiveM as "one of the most visible, high-value opportunity gaps in the gaming sector today."

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