CASE STUDY
The Sims 4: Horse Ranch Web DLC

EXPANSION PACK LAUNCH

CASE STUDY The Sims 4: Horse Ranch DLC

Overview

Electronic Arts partnered with Fourth Floor for their The Sims 4 Horse Ranch Expansion Pack DLC, to engage both new audiences and pre-existing Sims superfans with the expansion’s game-changing new additions.

EA wanted to engage new audiences whilst also staying true to the core community who had been requesting a horse expansion for a long time.

The Challenge

The Sims 4 has a deeply committed community of core players, but can sometimes struggle to convert free-to-play users to purchase DLCs and add to the experience.

  • It was key to position the Horse Ranch DLC as a refreshing new evolution for the game, emphasising not just a reskin but a fully featured, immersive new journey, full of new places, systems, and opportunities for fresh player storytelling.

  • Any campaign would also have to combat potential expansion pack fatigue that existing players might have from previous DLC.

Our Approach

Create a tentpole YouTube series in which a diverse range of Sims-adjacent variety creators deliver personalised, immersive role-playing stories, to both explore ranch-life and showcase The Sims at its best as a creative, player-led narrative sandbox.

  • Creators chose their in-game path and aims in reference to well-known personal traits, tastes, tropes, and themes familiar to their communities, ensuring that all content remained authentic and engaging while showcase the DLC systems and experiences to audiences beyond the Sims core.

  • This series ran alongside a Twitch campaign for the entirety of the Sims 4 launch window, with 19 creators exploring the DLC from unique storytelling perspectives spread across the two platforms.

RESULTS

We partnered with a total of 19 creators in a multi-platform awareness push that generated over 200k YouTube impressions, and a total of 21.5hrs streamed on Twitch. Our carefully considered creator choice meant that the Twitch streamers streamed 134% of their contracted hours. A high engagement rate across the YouTube content also reflected the accurate audience targeting and content strategy of the campaign.