Australian game Dumb Ways to Die has surpassed 100 million lifetime downloads following a recent TikTok trend, reports Mobilegamer.biz.
The game is a part of the Dumb Ways to Die campaign, created by Melbourne based Metro Trains to promote railway safety. Publisher PlaySide has been creating videos on TikTok combining people dressed as the characters, the campaign’s song, and footage of people having accidents, and these videos have seen a recent explosion in popularity, helping garner over 1.5 million subscribers, a slew of user-made videos based on the format, and a multitude of fresh downloads.
The game has seen modest success over its history, with an average of 600 thousand downloads a month prior to becoming a meme in January, according to Appmagic data. However, the meme has driven a massive boost in awareness for the game, which has seen 3.5 million new downloads in the past thirty days.
February 11 and 12 were particularly successful, with the game breaking its previous records and surpassing 300 thousand downloads on each day.
The advertising potential of virality
“We have a lot of fun with the brand, so we’re not surprised that it had the potential to inspire memes by others,” said PlaySide Studios’ Dumb Ways general manager Ben Kelly. “You can never predict virality – you’re just happy when it happens!”
“As of late January, the meme had started gaining traction, but it wasn’t until a fan uploaded a CapCut template that things really began to take off. This template allowed fans to readily duplicate the format and music.”
Since the videos went viral, the template has been used over 400 thousand new videos submitted by users, growing a collective 200 million views, while the official Dumb Ways to Die account has surpassed 76 million views and earned a million new followers. This success has translated into massive success for the game, which reached the number one spot on the iOS in eighteen regions worldwide, including the USA.
It isn’t just Dumb Ways to Die translating viral success into the games space. Last year, Baby Shark creator Pinkfong announced it’s working on a new game based on its hit Baby Shark videos.