How to Market a Co-op Game

Short answer: co-op games sell themselves in short clips, because the fun is other people. Show the moment it goes wrong between friends, not the menu or the tutorial. Let many creators post in the same day or two so the game feels like it's everywhere, and remember that every viewer who wishlists also thinks of someone to play it with. Five co-op campaigns on Trapster landed between $0.16 and $0.50 per wishlist.

A solo game has to convince one player. A co-op game has to convince a group, and that sounds harder. In practice it's the opposite: a clip of friends panicking together is one of the easiest things to share, and every share brings in the next player.

How have co-op campaigns performed?

Five co-op games with public case studies:

Game	Players	Wishlists added	Cost per wishlist
Clay Clinic	Up to 6	+16,750 from a brand new page	$0.16
Catch Meow If You Can	Up to 4	11,961 net over about two weeks, after a 2 day campaign	$0.20
Off Road Together	Co-op	6,000+ in 7 days	$0.27
Dynamite Day	Up to 6	+7,800 in 3 days	$0.46
JOIN US	1 to 4	About 8,000 in 5 days	$0.50

JOIN US started from a page that already had over 330,000 wishlists, so the campaign added volume to a big base in the launch window.

Why does co-op work so well in short-form video?

Three reasons:

• The reaction is the content. Viewers don't need to understand the mechanics. They watch people laugh, panic and blame each other.
• Mistakes are the best moments. In a co-op game, things going wrong is the fun part, and it's exactly what a 20 second clip needs.
• Every viewer thinks of a friend. A co-op clip ends with "we should play this", which turns one viewer into a group.

Clay Clinic is the clearest example: friends doing chaotic surgery on clay patients. Its page went from zero to 16,750 wishlists, and Instagram Reels alone brought 1.5 million of its 2.48 million views.

What should creators show?

The moment it goes wrong. A few from the case pages:

• Dynamite Day: fake alarms, traitor accusations and one fatal mistake in a missile defense bunker.
• JOIN US: starting your own doomsday cult and recruiting your friends into it.
• Very Safe Dino Park: a park that is very safe right up until it isn't. 15,701 wishlists at $0.10 each.
• Off Road Together: the brief focused on what makes its lobby loop special.

If your game has a social twist (a traitor, a vote, a shared resource), put it in the first two seconds. The full brief checklist is in our creator brief template.

Which creators fit a co-op game?

Look beyond your genre. Clay Clinic pulled creators from co-op, comedy and casual gaming niches. Off Road Together went to simulation, racing and co-op creators. Comedy creators are often the best fit, because co-op chaos is comedy.

Creators who already play with friends on camera are a bonus: their clips show the real group dynamic instead of one person explaining it.

Should the posts be spread out or all at once?

All at once. Dynamite Day had 78 videos go live within one day, and the goal was a same week awareness explosion. JOIN US concentrated its posts in the launch window so the game would feel unavoidable on short-form video. When a viewer sees the same game from three different creators in one evening, it stops looking like an ad and starts looking like a trend.

What about co-op games that are already out?

They can work even better with a reason to buy today. SOS OPS!, a chaotic co-op game, ran creator campaigns alongside a 90% discount and a new DLC. The case page credits the co-op format for pulling friends in, and the game sold 287,139 copies that week. More on this in how to boost sales of a game that's already out.

FAQ

Do co-op games need bigger creators?
No. Clay Clinic worked with 16 creators. The premise did the work, not follower counts.

Should creators play with friends in the video?
It helps, but it isn't required. Many strong clips are one creator reacting to chaos caused by other players.

What cost per wishlist should a co-op game expect?
On the five campaigns above, between $0.16 and $0.50. Games with a clear "friends causing chaos" hook landed at the low end.

What's the minimum budget on Trapster?
$3,000 per campaign. How CPM and cost per wishlist work is covered in how much game influencer marketing costs.

Get your co-op game in front of the right groups

Send us your Steam page and tell us the moment where it all goes wrong. We'll come back with a free forecast for views, creators and wishlists. See Trapster for studios or book a call.

Sources: campaign figures come from Trapster case studies. Cost per wishlist is the creator budget divided by wishlists added, platform fee excluded.