500k fans are waiting for a gender-fluid fashion game and an animation series from this hit Youtube IP
- Riding the digital trend, from virtual to stage.
- Enormous fans support from 2 successful Kickstarter campaigns
- Building an animated TV series and mobile game
Before the popularity of the Internet and online social platform, fictional characters only appeared in literature and video games. Nowadays technologies allow imagination to take off and fictional characters can become celebrities with the right tools.
Read the story of Visible Realms where the visual artists showcase their talent through characters set to music for the Studio Killers property.
Seeing the trend in digitized animation, the idea came, Eliza Jäppinen and the band premiered Studio Killers in 2011 as an electropop virtual band with the first single Ode to the Bouncer.
After 9 years with 1 album, 8 songs and dozens of video blogs on their Youtube channel, Studio Killers became a social media phenomenon with 473k followers on Youtube, more than 130 million views; 50k followers in Instagram and 80k on Facebook.
That is when Eliza Jäppinen founded Visible Realms to develop and grow the Studio Killers property and other transmedia IP’s with the insight gained developing Studio Killers to this point.
Visible Realms, the development studio based in Helsinki, run by professionals who have been in the animation and game space for over a decade.
Enormous fan support got them to their next products
As Youtube revenues are never enough for the sort of animation production that a property like Studio Killers requires, they needed to find another way to fund the property.
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Fortunately, with its global popularity, Studio Killers has a strong and loyal fanbase who are willing to support their idols, Visible Realms turned to them with a Kickstarter campaign.
Studio Killers had seen previous success with their first Kickstarter campaign, raising 55,000 GBP, helping “the band” perform live at Ruisrock and Ilosaarirock festivals in 2014 in Finland.
By the end of 2019, Visible Realms set out to build Studio Killers into a globally recognisable brand with their own animated TV series and mobile game.
To finance the pilot, they put together and ran a 2nd Kickstarter which reached its 115,000 Euro goal in 48 hours.
The success of both campaigns has proved not only the support of the Studio Killers fans but of the target consumer for their future products.
Visible Realms and their future journey
With the team of 4 members, who all have backgrounds in creative content production,
Visible Realms joined Nordic Startup School this spring seeking for competency in business development, negotiation and ultimately securing partnerships that can bring the Studio Killers series and game to a broader customer base.
“We are very excited about the journey with NSS.
In six months to two years, we see ourselves at the beginning of one or two new partnerships with distributors or financiers, entering production on the series, with a successful mobile game running live alongside the social media content and becoming a household name.
Making friends and alliances in the business that ensure us the opportunities to push out additional IP’s and games with big transmedia angles, and making international hit properties for decades to come.
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