Brightika
Warhounds
The Challenge
Brightika was building pre-launch momentum for Warhounds — a turn-based tactics game about an elite mercenary squad, inspired by XCOM and Jagged Alliance. The Steam page was live at announcement stage, and the genre is famously slow-burn: tactics fans are loyal but scattered, hard to target with paid ads, and nobody's default idea of a short-form audience.
The open question was whether TikTok and Shorts viewers would engage with a thinking-player's genre at all — and whether that attention would convert into Steam wishlists rather than empty views.
The Approach
The campaign opened on Trapster at a $7 CPM — deliberately above the usual $5 — to win the strongest shorts creators in the strategy and gaming niches. 23 creators self-enrolled and shipped 67 videos across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels under the #warhounds tag.
Creators found the hooks themselves: "XCOM but no fake RNG," true ballistics, the old-school action-movie squad fantasy. The angle landed — content pulled 18,700+ likes at a 4.6% like rate, and because views kept accruing after creator caps were hit, the effective CPM settled at $5.18.
Results
Top Performing Videos
23 creators across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram. Tap a card to watch the post.
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