Stylized game-world environment, saturated brand palette, art-directed composition
Square Enix logo
CS · 10

Square Enix × AYMI

+750%
Hero stat

Pre-sales across the global launch window — concentrated through digital channels.

A digital-first release model for a global IP — pre-sales up, digital downloads up, CAC down.

Digital downloads
+230%
CAC
-42%
Region-weighted ROI
+88%
Storefront conversion
+62%
01Challenge

The brief beneath the brief.

Square Enix's IP travels globally; the marketing playbook didn't, evenly. Each region was running its own pre-launch motion with different KPI, different creative, and uneven measurement. Pre-sales were strong in some territories and thin in others without a clear diagnosis.

The brief was a unified digital-first release model — same architecture across regions, localized at the surface, measured cleanly across all.

02Approach

The Method, applied.

Five movements: Discovery, Strategy, Creative, Launch, Optimize. Each one feeds the next; the loop closes on Optimize and starts again on Discovery.

  1. Step 01Discovery

    Region-by-region funnel diagnostic. Found that soft territories had soft mid-funnel (wishlist → conversion), not soft awareness.

  2. Step 02Strategy

    Unified release architecture: same five phases across regions, localized creative and offer layer, single measurement frame.

  3. Step 03Creative

    Modular creative system anchored on title world, localized through region-specific narrative beats and platform behaviors.

  4. Step 04Launch

    Coordinated global rollout. Digital storefronts treated as primary distribution; physical channels as secondary.

  5. Step 05Optimize

    Region-weighted ROI tracked daily through launch window. Spend rebalanced mid-launch as previously soft territories lit up under the new mid-funnel work.

03Outcome

What the numbers carried.

Pre-sales lifted 750% globally with region-weighted ROI up 88% — the gain weighted toward previously soft territories the new model unlocked. Digital downloads climbed 230% as the unified architecture concentrated demand at the digital storefront. CAC dropped 42%. Storefront conversion lifted 62%.

What the launch proved: the IP wasn't soft anywhere. The playbook had been.

Services rendered

Related work

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The Method

The work above ran on the same five movements as every AYMI engagement.

Read The Method
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