RIVAL STARS HORSE RACING
Rival Stars Horse Racing is one of PikPok’s most popular titles, thanks in no small part to its ethos of being as true to life as possible. In my first year at the company, about 70% of my workload was making short-form content for Rival Stars Horse Racing user acquisition, in which I pushed for bigger and better content, to help reel in and retain an audience who clearly valued quality and attention to detail. As my role and responsibilities grew with PikPok, I continued to push the team to shift our focus from algorithm satiating quantity, to player satisfying quality. The results speak for themselves, as the work displayed below quickly became some of the most viewed and engaged with content that the title (and studio) has ever released.
Selle français reveal
New breeds in Rival Stars Horse Racing were a long-anticipated by fans, so for our first one, we needed to give them a spectacular reveal. We looked to Apple and their product launch videos and decided on a similar approach for the Selle Français reveal. I worked closely with the audio team to ensure we created a track that built anticipation & excitement, appropriate to this style of reveal. In the video itself, we made sure to highlight the breed’s specific features, giving fans an opportunity to guess what it might be before the name drop.
The creative performed incredibly well, becoming the second-most viewed video on the game’s YouTube channel with 121,000 views.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy
Arabian REveal
The second new breed to be introduced was the Arabian; a fan favourite breed amongst horse-lovers, we knew this was an important one for the community, so the reveal needed to be bigger and better than the first. In service of less mystery & more glory, I looked at advertising for 4WD vehicles, taking inspiration from their beautiful long tracking shots and large open landscapes. Arabians are known for their endurance so showing this off was paramount. And once again I worked closely with our audio team to create an invigorating & exciting track that matched our striking visuals. Our goal to beat our first reveal was achieved, as the video took top spot for most viewed on the channel at 136,000 views.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy
TVC 1 - Make your own odds
With Rival Stars exponentially growing in popularity, the team wanted to take advantage of this by extending our reach as far as possible. As a result, we arranged to do some TVC creatives for two different horse related networks. The first was specifically a horse racing (and betting) network called Racing TV, which exists both on US network TV & online. To appeal to the network’s core audience, we decided on a quick, energetic ad that revolved around the racing and statistical/technical aspects of the game. When writing the callouts I leaned into language that those familiar with horse-betting would use, to help bridge the gap between their usual hobby and our game.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy, Copywriting
TVC 2 - Raise your dream horse
The second of our TVC creatives, was for a network called Clip My Horse, which aired all equestrian sports. For this audience the brief was geared towards the concept of owning, raising & riding a stable full of digital horses; essentially creating the fantasy of being a horse-owner (without the financial stress). As a result the creative uses a lot more custom camera scenes, as compared to in-game captures, and really leans into the fidelity and wonder of the Rival Stars world. When writing copy I used much less “themed” language, that supports the gameplay and lets it speak for itself more than anything.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy, Copywriting
Key contributors:
Robin Wilson-Davey, Renee Cotton, Michael Corlett, Ali Paul, Jayde Marter, Dmitry Novikov
Broghan Blackshaw & the Rival Stars Horse Racing dev team.
