Why Content Creators’ Online Audiences Tapered Off After the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic locked the entire world away at home when lockdowns were put into place to control the spread of the virus. It took a few years before the world could get back to normal. But on a side note, what were those people doing during that time?

For us at Drillimation, the first Chuhou Joutai game was nearing completion. Despite a busy academic schedule for the Prophet Driller at the time, the lockdowns were used to do the finishing touches on the game and get it on Steam just in time.

Two months before the lockdown began, we also released an NES-inspired adaptation of the first Touhou Project game, The Highly Responsive to Prayers. It ended up becoming Drillimation’s most popular game, beating Chuhou Joutai in terms of downloads.

We enjoyed a period of growth during the pandemic. As lockdown restrictions were being eased, many of those players were leaving because they weren’t staying home as much and returning to the workplace. For the Chuhou Joutai trilogy, the first game released during the time the world was locked down in the spring of 2020, the second game released in the summer of 2021 when we were starting to get back to normal, and the third game released in the autumn of 2022 at a time when we nearly fully recovered.

Where do we find new audiences? Only the future and your own projects can answer that question.

Daily writing prompt

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?

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