Hello!
This month's top section is links galore - GDC talks from this year have released on the Vault, and there's a bunch of good learning to be had.
Below will be a list of some of the ones I enjoyed watching - that's not to say ones not listed are bad! I just haven't gotten to watching them yet and/or tried to also focus on ones that are free to watch. (Two are locked behind a paywall though, sorry.)
This month's newsletter dives into:
- GDC talk recommendations
- A new community discussion - it's time to share knowledge with each other
- 20 cool links and games community related job posts
GDC Talks
Session: Community Management Summit: Streamers Don't Want to Play Your Game
Summary: Jenny Windom details what content creators look for when deciding what to play, and how teams can set themselves up for success in their game's influencer outreach and strategy.
Quick Thoughts: It's one thing to guess at what a group of people want, and it's another to be in it. I love Jenny's talk because she has the perspective as a game developer and content creator since, well, she's is both. A lot of great tips and mysteries behind influencer relations are cleared up here, plus some solid stats.
Session: Cult of the Twitch: How 'Cult of the Lamb' Used Twitch Integration to Reach a Massive Audience
Summary: Harrison Gibbins and Thomas Tuts give an in-depth look at how the Cult of the Lamb integration was designed and developed, the hurdles that were faced as well as an in-depth look at how well the game performed on Twitch.
Quick Thoughts: I love anything that combines the technical with the creative! This is a great look into the potential and process a marketing-first approach. Love the way they broke down why they chose the integration for each interaction model and the numbers.
Session: ROI on T&S: Toxicity and the Bottom Line
Summary: Rachel Kowert presents a business case for effective moderation of toxic behavior in gaming spaces, how it impacts not only player communities, but the fiscal bottom line.
Quick Thoughts: I know many in community often struggle to justify why so much of what we do matters to people who are money or numbers driven. Having a talk with such tangible stats and tips on how to improve helps everyone get on the same page and worth together.
Session: It's About Time(lines): Marketing Your Game from Finish to Start
Summary: Derek Lieu and Dana Trebella teach you step-by-step instructions to plan the 6-18 month timeline starting with pre-announcement and ending with the game's launch.
Quick Thoughts: Timelines is one of the biggest things I find people struggle with - how soon are you even supposed to start planinng your announcements?! Having this very clear guide and production timeline is so valuable - especially from two people who I'm sure get emails asking about marketing wayyy too late.
[PAYWALLED] Session: The Marketing Money Talk: How to Budget Your Indie Game's Promotion Campaign
Summary: Thomas Reisenegger offers a hands-on overview of how to conduct promotion campaigns (covering marketing, pr, influencers, trailers, paid ads and more), with rough price ranges for different activities.
Quick Thoughts: MONEY! The one thing people are always very hesitant to talk about, and especially when it comes to marketing, can honestly just be so varied and confusing. This talk is a great overview and ranking of how to get the most bang for your buck.
[PAYWALLED] Session: Community Management Summit: Roll Play: The Strategy Behind 'Baldur's Gate 3' on TikTok
Summary: Ben Maltz-Jones goes through the strategy, successes, and failures of bringing Larian Studios to TikTok.
Quick Thoughts: When it comes to social media, it's always interesting to see what is working for who. Especially because algorithms change so quickly! This talk outlines a great behind-the-scenes of how it's done.
Community Activity 📝
Every month we do a skill testing exercise or discussion question together.
The question:
Let's see how other teams work!
How do you coordinate with the dev team about what goes into something like patch notes or a dev log?
For instance:
- Do you get to decide what to communicate? How do you decide that?
- Does your content need to go through an approval process?
- Are you told what to write, or do you check documentation about the milestone?
Feel free to email me back with your answer - I always respond to them. My answer will be in the next newsletter!
If we get response where people are willing to share how they coordinate with their teams, then I will add those into the newsletter as well.
Last week's activity:
I want to like this but it’s so stupid. There’s no logic to how the combat works, all that matters is how high your stats are. Even if you have all your stats in strength, if someone with high agility comes in, you’re defeated. There’s also no real way to tell what combo you’re supposed to do, people just smash whatever they want and hope it works until their stats are high enough. It’s like playing Street Fighter with 14 toddlers who don’t understand how the game works. It’s so boring, and they barely have customization options for your character.
Based purely off of the above comment, what would you recommend as the top fix for the next update from this list, and why?
- Button remapping.
- New cosmetics.
- Rebalance the game to make agility less powerful.
- Tooltip on how to play the game.
- Better matchmaking.
This answer can very likely have more than one "best" answer, depending on your reasoning!
I feel a moral obligation to remind you that it is bad practice to change entire game features over one angry comment, even though this is what I said to do in the activity haha. ANYWAYS.
While the player is clearly frustrated, it's snowballing into several different complaints - so when I'm reading this, here's my vagueeee thought process marked in orange. (Not perfect and I don't actually mark up reviews like this, but trying to give you a sense of my immediate thoughts.)
Fun fact this was a real review from somewhere else, I just changed some names and/or shuffled things around.
I want to like this but it’s so stupid. Stupid, how? There’s no logic to how the combat works Possible confusion over mechanics?, all that matters is how high your stats are. Is this actually true in the game? Even if you have all your stats in strength, if someone with high agility comes in, you’re defeated. Lmao possible skills issue but not in the meme way. Is it an issue with actual balance, the player, or is matchmaking weird? There’s also no real way to tell what combo you’re supposed to do Confusion over mechanic?, people just smash whatever they want and hope it works until their stats are high enough Confusion over how to play, frustration over matchmaking?. It’s like playing Street Fighter with 14 toddlers Emotional wording, leave it out for now who don’t understand how the game works. Confusion over how to play, frustration over matchmaking? It’s so boring, What does boring mean to them? Possibly based off previous comments, it's the feeling they can't get good games in? and they barely have customization options for your character. Minor issue at the end, leave it out for now.
Based off this, I'd look into the matchmaking change, or if that were too heavy a lift for the development team, tooltips. The issues they were complaining about in both frequency and length revolved around some sort of issue with playing with others.
Community Chatter 💬
Here are the interesting and helpful things I've seen this past month.
General News
- SXSW 2024 Keynote - Death of the Follower & the Future of Creativity on the Web with Jack Conte
- The USA passed a law that says TikTok must divest its ownership position or face a ban of the app - TikTok plans to file a lawsuit challenging the law (my quick thoughts: too early to worry about this at the moment, especially until the lawsuit happens, but never a bad idea to review your social strategy!)
- More info on a TikTok Business vs Personal Account
Games Resources
Community & Marketing Game Jobs
These are not endorsements.
- Arrowhead Game Studios - Social Media Manager (Stockholm, Sweden)
- Bandai Namco - Sr. Brand Manager (Irvine, USA)
- Cloudhead Games - Social Media and Community Specialist (Remote, PST)
- EA - Global Director of Influencer Strategy & Relations - Battlefield (Los Angeles, USA)
- EA - Marketing Analytics Manager, Apex Legends (Los Angeles, USA)
- Fandom - Sr. Social Media Strategist (San Francisco/Los Angeles, USA)
- Fatshark AB - Senior Community Manager (Stockholm, Sweden)
- Gearbox Entertainment Company - Senior Influencer Marketing Manager (Remote in Texas?)
- Hinterland - Player Support Specialist (Remote)
- Keywords Studios - Player Engagement Manager (Remote)
- Kinetic Game - Community Manager (Southampton, United Kingdom)
- LEGO - Gaming Community Manager (London, United Kingdom)
- Netflix Games - Marketing Associate, External Games (Los Angeles, USA)
- Paradox Interactive - Freelance Community Ambassador (Remote)
- Sumo Digital - Community Manager (Remote, UK)
- The Pokémon Company International - YouTube Channel Manager (Bellevue, USA)
- Twitch - Senior Manager, Corporate Communications (Various cities, USA)
I feel like I say this every newsletter lol but next month is suuuper busy for me! I will strive to bring you that quality content regardless.
❤️
Victoria
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7:42 PM • Apr 24, 2024
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