Case studyGaming
Rogues Studio
Growing a gaming audience through partnerships and rewarded referrals
Rogues is a gaming studio built around a Telegram-based player community. As co-founder and CEO, I led the growth system that took the player base from 0 to 100,000+ users with approximately $0 paid marketing — combining distribution through partner projects with an in-app referral incentive — and kept players returning through 92+ consecutive weekly in-game tournaments.
100K+
Users
acquired with approximately $0 paid marketing
50M+
Game plays
with a peak of 40,000 monthly active users
300+
Partnerships
plus grant funding from 6+ blockchains
Context
- Product
- A gaming ecosystem where players compete in regular in-game tournaments and invite friends into the app.
- Audience
- Players discovered through partner project communities, then through invitations from existing players.
- Challenge
- Grow a player base from zero with effectively no marketing budget. Distribution had to be earned — through other projects’ audiences and through players themselves — rather than bought.
My role
What I led personally
- High-level partnership negotiations, personally
- The partnership team and its pipeline of 300+ partnerships
- The overall growth strategy as CEO, including the referral incentive design
What was shared
Game development and tournament operations were delivered with the wider studio team. The results below come from that combined system, not from me alone.
Approach
We combined distribution through partner projects with an in-app referral incentive. Partnerships brought players into the ecosystem; existing players earned gems when invited friends joined.
The reward was deliberately tied to a friend actually joining the app — not merely sharing a link — so the incentive rewarded real acquisitions rather than broadcasts.
- Partner projects introduce players to the app
- Players join
- Players invite friends
- Referred friends join
- Referrers receive in-app gems
- The reward encourages players to invite again
Reward rule. The gem reward is granted when a referred friend joins — not for simply sharing a link.
Read the loop honestly. Some referred players went on to invite others in turn. That continuation was possible, not guaranteed — the diagram shows the loop as designed, not a conversion funnel.
Engagement ran on a separate track from acquisition: we maintained a regular competitive rhythm through 92+ consecutive weekly in-game tournaments. Tournaments were an engagement activity, not part of the referral mechanism.
Alongside the growth system, I secured grant funding from 6+ blockchains and managed the end-to-end funding process for the studio.
Results
Acquisition
- 100,000+ users, acquired with approximately $0 paid marketing (January 2022 – present). “Users” here means total players who joined, not active users.
Activity
- 50,000,000+ game plays across the player base.
- A peak of 40,000 monthly active users.
- 92+ consecutive weekly in-game tournaments — an operational cadence, not a retention rate.
Partnerships & funding
- 300+ partnerships established and scaled, with high-level negotiations led personally and a partnership team managed day to day.
- Grant funding secured from 6+ blockchains.
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Want the story behind these numbers?
I’m happy to walk through what I led, what the team delivered and what I’d do differently — for roles, partnerships or anything you’re building.