Helios
Twitch ARG

Seemingly out of nowhere, bizarre, cryptic messages began to appear on official /twitchgaming streams alongside Twitch Partners, which started building hype and curiosity around what it is actually about. When pieced together, these fragmented messages gave away a message relaying to a Twitch stream.

Once viewers discovered the hidden Twitch stream, they had to use a unique Twitch Extension that we developed in order to complete various puzzles, making their way into a mysterious military complex. They soon learned that this was the birthplace of an abandoned USAF project, within AREA 51.

After a week of progressing through the facility, the viewers finally discovered the Bunker Hangar and were able to collaboratively turn on the power. As soon as this was done, everyone currently watching the /twitchgaming streams were redirected to the mysterious stream and the Main Event began, under the codename ‘HELIOS : Initiative RAMPART’

One the Main Event started, viewers were prompted to install another Twitch Extension that we developed, purposefully for the Main Event. In this Extension, they could acquire various Raw Materials after a certain amount of time spent watching streams on Twitch, and then combine them to create Refined Materials. These Refined Materials were required by streamers and the only way they could obtain them was to work with their viewer community.

Furthermore, since one of our objectives was to help viewers discover new content creators and communities, we designed the event so that only certain materials were available on certain streamers. This created a need for the viewers to cycle through all the streamers participating in the event, to make sure they were obtaining all the right materials that they needed.

In order to make sure we encouraged as much streamer-viewer interaction as possible, we designed the event so that the streamers had no choice but to work with their community to obtain the materials needed for their missions. Within the event, streamers had to complete 5 missions helping them pursue the construction of a rocket which would deploy an orbital barrier and protect Earth from an incoming Extinction Level Event.

For this, they needed various Refined Materials from their viewers so that they could manufacture Components. These Components then had to be turned in to complete the various missions and furthered the progress of the rocket manufacturing.

Once enough streamers had completed all 5 missions, the RAMPART ONE rocket was complete. Viewers could see the fully-assembled space module in front of them within the hangar and a countdown to launch. It is then that we hosted a launch party inspired by those of SpaceX and BlueOrigin.

Hosted by the amazing DeejayKnight, we welcomed several streamers who participated in the event during the whole week. To make this final event even more amazing, we modeled and animated a whole launch sequence, including all of the checkups in the hour leading up to the launch. As the timer hit T-2 minutes, we transferred to a full view of the launch sequence.

This project was an amazing success in terms of reach and engagement, proven by statistics that surpassed even our wildest ambitions. We went 2500% over the initial KPI of 10 000 viewers with 250 000, with 55 000 of them becoming players. This playerbase was extremely active during the event, crafting more than 169 000 materials and trading with streamers over 99 000 times. What’s even more impressive, is that with 66 combined streamers participating in the HELIOS : RAMPART Initiative event, 514 cumulative hours were streamed over a 3 day period.

Streamers were also extremely engaged in the event, since they saw a direct correlation between using this event as an engagement tool and an increase in revenue generation. Since Hype Trains started an Overcharge, which is when rare materials started dropping much more frequently, viewers were greatly encouraged to donate Bits and subscribe to their favorite streamer participating in the event.