LAFS Marketing and Monetization Lecture 9: Community Development And Management

Level 9
David Mullich
Marketing and Monetization
The Los Angeles Film School

The Gaming Community
A community is a group of
people, gathering somewhere to
talk and exchange ideas about
one or several subjects.
Community is an essential part of
just about any game, particularly
those whose success is
dependent on social virality.
There have been gaming
communities for ages, but they
began to grow bigger and
stronger with the internet.

Ingredients For A Gaming Community
 A game to talk
about
 A place to talk

Community Tools
 Official Website
 Official Message Boards
 Fan Site Kits
 Blogs
 Newsletters

Why Build A Community
Building a community can unlock:
 Engagement
 Influence
 Evangelism
Let’s take a closer look at each!

Engagement
Huge sites dedicated to the lore behind
Skyrim and Mass Effect pop up because fans
are attached to the game world the
developers have created.
Community is an important part in deepening
the relationship between your players and the
game world you’ve constructed.

Influence
It’s a mechanism for allowing free and
forthright debate between players and your
company.
A fully functioning community allows players
to reach you, resolve problems and feel like
they can influence the development of a
game they like.

Evangelism
A study in 2013 by Applifier showed that 20%
of users are sharers and these people drive
installs, play longer and are worth more.
By offering these players a chance to interact
and share their experiences, you can use
your community to build and promote your
brand.

Benefits
Your time and efforts in developing audience
and community programs should reap
significant rewards as you approach your first
game’s release date – and into the future as
well.
These will become your most direct and
unobstructed channels.

Tips On Announcing Release Dates
 Referring to an “expected release date” and
season will give you more flexibility
 As your game gets closer to completion, you
can then refer to a release month
 As the game nears completion, you can refer
to a release day
 Contacts at key distribution channel should be
involved in determining your final release date

Starting Out
In the initial stages of your studio, you’ll have
a small online presence with moderate
communications frequency.

Mailing List
You can start building a community by inviting people
to join your mailing list.
As your mailing list expands, think about ways to
keep this connection going through regular email
connections – perhaps monthly.
This may be one of your best marketing vehicles
because it has direct contact with your most engaged
and informed enthusiasts – and maybe game
journalists and industry influencers.

Ways To Build Your Mailing List
 Mailing List Sign-Up Prompt on your
home page, game page, Facebook page,
store page
 Convey Benefits of signing up: news,
periodic special offers, contests, and more
 List Building Promotions that offer
discount coupons, prize raffles, or other
benefits for signing up

Personality and Tone
A friendly, open, informal style works very well
for creating affinity with your audience.
You might find this more difficult at times,
when you run into challenges like technical
glitches, game schedule delays, etc.

Humor
Humor can work very well for building the
connection and rapport with your audience.
However, a light touch doesn’t fit well for all
projects, particularly if it isn’t appropriate for your
style of game.
Find a person on your team who knows how to
strike the right tone and use humor effectively
with your audience.

Social Media
Social media channels allow you to
communicate directly with your audience and
engage in ways that never were possible
before through traditional marketing.
This level of access with your audience will
only continue to improve.

Social Media
When you attend a trade show, get your
project covered on an industry blog, or do
some kind of crazy industry stunt, generate
interest through social media posts.

News Articles
You can interact with your audience in the
comments section of articles about topics
related to your game.
Personality and tone play are important roles
in these communications. Stay friendly and
positive!

Community Forums
Adding a community forum to your website
can work well for building connections to your
fans and keeping them engaged.
You can also interact with your audience
through other website’s forums, like the ones
run by online game distributors.

Video Channels
YouTube and Twitch are great channels for
building your audience, interest, engagement
and loyalty.
 Live streaming days for an inside look at your
development team
 Streaming sessions that showcase players
 Spotlight of community head-to-head play
sessions
 User-created content and initiatives

Other Audience Development
Opportunities
 Contests: great for user-generated content,
multilayer showdowns, and random
giveaways
 Fan Art: Posting galleries and praising
great submissions

Community Sustainment
Your community can help with sustaining
interest in your game after it releases.
These core fans can build positive word-of-
mouth with friends and share their
enthusiasm.

A Personal Touch
It is important make sure someone has ownership of
expanding the community.
You’ll find community growth are vastly improved
when your team is personally dedicated to
responding and monitoring all channels.
A personalized note promising a player that we will fix
a bug will go a lot farther than a generic response
that says “we are looking into the problem”.

Feeding The Beast
 Information
 Frequent updates and broadcasts
 Keep fan sites up to date
 Bring up topics in forums
 Entertainment
 Special events
 Contests

Scheduling Communications
Build a schedule around key dates so that there
is a flow of planned content to the community.
 Regularly Scheduled Posts
 News And Update Posts
 Seasonal Posts

Regularly Scheduled Posts
Posts that go up every week without fail and often
result from spotlighting activity from your gamers.
This could range from the most epic bases seen in
your game for that week, to the results of who won in
game tournaments or a round-up of the most
impressive fan art.
By showing gamers you’re watching and appreciating
their experiences, the bond between company and
player grows.

Seasonal Posts
Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day,
Halloween and Thanksgiving are obvious
ones, as well as all sorts of special days that
can tie into your marketing.
By building up this calendar of content and
keeping to it, you can make sure that there is
always something for your community to get
into and to promote your titles effectively.

News And Updates Posts
These posts are rarer or more frequent
depending on the game and developer, but
you can hype up new content launches by
teasing news in the weeks leading up to the
reveal and talk about the feedback or effects
after the release.

Posting Tips
 Find your sweet spot when itcomes to post
frequency
 Track you results through an analytics tool.
 Keep posts short: 1-3 sentences
 Use engagement drivers such as opene-
ended questions or polls

User-Generated Content
Some games offer new ways for players to create user-
generated content: new levels, skins, mods, etc. This can
keep the game fresh and interesting.
User-generated content additions can bring unique and
custom content, specifically tailored for different groups.
You might even get player-generated content that’s so
strong that you want to work with the contributors to
integrate their innovations into future releases of the core
game, DLC packs of updates.

Contests and Giveaways
These types of events bring you a lot of traffic
and generate a good following with minimal
costs an.
Discount codes, free keys, etc. can bring in
some good results—all you have to do is to
work hard in order to find the best method to
interact with your target audience.

Contests
User-generated content fits well for contests, with
prizes for top contributions. You can also create
different kinds of contests beyond user-
generated content:
 Best fan art/fan fiction
 Best player-created videos based on game
content
 Best cosplay-based on game characters
 Head-to-head showdown competitions
 Prizes for top players in leaderboards

Contests
Build engagement by sharing news on
finalists and winners through website and
social networks.
When these kinds of programs perform best,
finalists and winners post about them within
their networks.

Community Migration
Some players may begin playing a
game simply because it's attractive
to them, but very often they just go
from a game to the other to follow
the people they play with.
By targeting communication toward
an existing community and providing
the right tools, publishers can attract
groups of players instead of lonely
players, and make community efforts
more effective.

Community Manager
The ambassador of a
company or brand on the
web, handling both
customer support and
public relations duties.
 Builds and monitors
multiple communities
generated in blogs,
forums, social
networks, etc.
 The authorized voice of
the company.

Responsibilities
 Management of community tools provided to
the players
 Organization of events (both in-game and real)
 Transmission of information from the dev team
to the community
 Transmission of reports, feedback and
suggestions from the community to the team

Community Management
Extra Credits: Community Management
(5:17)

Community Manager Soft Skills
 Communication
 Knowledge
 Experience
 Emotional Qualities

Communication Skills
 Writing
 Talking

Knowledge
 Gaming
 Linguistic
 Social Media

Expertise
 Community
 Mass Media
 Development

Emotional Qualities
 Patience
 Empathy
 Self-Confidence (but not too much)
 Humility
 Teamwork
 Management Skills
 Rigor
 Ability to Listen

A Day In A Community Manager’s Life
10:00 Check on overnight status
10:30 Round-table with the moderators (players)
11:00 Interact on forums
2:30 Check unofficial communities and news
4:00 Create content: motivational posts, images
7:00 Go Home

Cruise Director Role
 Information help
 Problem solving
 Event planning and
management
 Content creation

GM Tool
 Master control panel for any account
 Create/delete items/money
 Change character attribute
 Customer service functions
 World control
 Rare spawns
 World events

Principles For Helping Players
 Listen To Your Community
 Be Nice To Players
 Be Responsive
 Tell Players The Truth

Listen To Your Community
Even negative opinions can have value, because
you can begin to draw conclusions about what
players aren’t enjoying, or what they find hard to
understand.
You don’t have to change the direction of your
entire game based on a single complaint, but
having a finger on the pulse of the community
can help you to find those points of friction within
your game and help players move past them.

Feedback Reports
 Short and precise description of the
presentation
 The target customer
 The positive impact it could have
 The impact on the development team
 The impact on the business

Be Responsive
Players want to know that their opinions and
concerns are being heard, whether or not they are
eventually implemented, and the simplest of
responses can be very valuable.
Even if you won’t be acting on their suggestions or
complaints, you should let them know that, explain
why, and thank them for their input.
While you don’t have to respond to every suggestion,
players like to know that you’re paying attention.

Be Nice To Players
Your goal is to appear reasonable to most people,
and making a good first or second or fifth impression
on your players can have a strong impact later.
When players feel good about you, they feel good
about your game, and they’ll want to stick around.
Public perception is important in making players feel
like your game is a good choice for them, and for the
friends with whom they'll discuss your game.

Tell Players The Truth
Your most passionate players are pretty smart and can tell when you’re
trying to cover up a mistake.
If they successfully call you out on it, they’ll lose trust in you, and trust
is difficult to win back.
If they’re taking issue with something that happened in your game that
was truly unintentional, admit your mistake and tell them how you’ll
rectify it. They’ll appreciate your honesty, and will trust you to do the
right thing in the future.
Some of the more involved players will even help out by sharing your
responses to common questions when they inevitably get asked again.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
If a community manager doesn't
earn the respect of the community,
everything he says will have no
value, and his mission will fail.
He also has to make sure the rules
are respected by making sure
everybody knows them and can
understand them.

Beat Cop Role
 Griefing
 Abuse
 Fraud
 Farming
 Exploits

Sexual Harassment
Extra Credits, Season 4, Episode 11 –
Harassment (7:27)

Maintaining Controls
 Clear rules of conduct
 Community education
 Fan site programs

Haters Gonna Hate
Some audience members will always
be negative.
When dealing with haters, a balanced
rational communication will serve you
best.
Ultimately, taking the higher ground
will put you in the best light. It may not
matter to the haters, but it will be
noticed by the rest of your audience.

Navigating Landmines
A community manager’s
behavior has to be without any
blame, because one and only
one mistake can spread very
quickly through the communities,
meta-communities, networks,
and so on, all over the internet,
in less than six hours!

When The Whole Audience Turns On
You
You need to keep cool,
stay positive, and be
yourself.
These are times when you
need to step away from the
computer and collect your
thoughts before engaging.

1. Don’t Plan Too Far Ahead
Your community is always changing and
evolving, and it will get stale if it’s planned too
far ahead.
Do: Plan content one month in advance and
be prepared to adjust and update what you
planned as the month goes.

2. Focus On The Quality Of Your Fans,
Not The Quantity
Facebook will only show your updates to the
most engaged segment of your fanbase
anyway.
Do: Spend time and resources to acquire
fans who are truly interested and engaged
with your game, and don’t worry about the
rest.

3. Remember Your Role In The Group
Love the games and advocate for them, but
limit the marketing messages to the fans.
Do: Keep fans in mind at all times. Yes, you
do represent the brand, but the fans are your
real priority.

4. Make Engagement The Goal
Experiment and do what it takes to get your
fans to chime in.
Do: Ask open-ended questions, write fill-in-
the-blank posts, or turn boring updates into
polls.

5. Relax And Interact Like A Real
Person
Genuine interactions with fans are
memorable. The “corporate-speak” response
you have planned and pre-approved, is not.
Do: Develop response “guidelines” if
necessary; converse with fans in a nature,
genuine way while staying on voice/tone for
the brand.

6. Run Your Posts Through The “BFF
Checker”
Fans don’t want to talk to a computer – or a
human that sound like one.
Do: Ask yourself if what you’re about to say in
the community is the same as what you’d day
to your best friend. If you wouldn’t be that
stuffy or corporate with your friend, scrap it!

7. Don’t Be Big Brother
Let conversations flourish without you, and
weigh in when your voice will really add
value. Don’t respond too quickly.
Do: Activate the 10 minute rule! When a fan
asks a question, wait to see if other fans will
chime in.

8. Don’t Coddle The Complainers
Sympathizing too much with the naysayers in
your community will only draw attention to the
issue.
Do: Expect a certain amount of negativity in
your community and respond when
necessary without turning small issues into
big ones.

9. Let Your Fans Shine
Your fans are the true stars of your
community, and they want to be heard and
recognized. If you make them stars, you’ll
earn their loyalty for a lifetime.
Do: Invite fans to share photos and videos,
and feature their stories in updates.

10. Use Your Community To Learn
You have a virtual focus group at your
fingertips – use it!
Do: Poll your fans to find out what they think
about upcoming games, marketing
campaigns, new promotions, and more.

Common Mistakes Made By
Management
 Sending community managers into the lion's
den without proper information and/or backing
from management
 Not providing enough support to the CM's
team/not managing the community team
 Underpay/under-consider the community team
 Underestimate the importance of coordination
between marketing, public relations and
community management
.

Group Quest
Create a plan to build, develop and sustain
an audience for your game.
 Audience Forming
 Audience Building
 Audience Energizing
 Audience Engagement

Murphy’s Law
“If anything can go wrong, it will.”
So matter how carefully you plan, something may go wrong.
 Game designs change
 Projects fall behind schedule
 Project get cancelled
 Servers crash
 Policies considered abusive
You need to be nimble and plan for course corrections as
needed.

Plan For Flexibility
Keep your team open to changes while
developing and executing your plan.
Games often take longer to complete than
originally anticipated. Or you may have better
ideas midway through development. Market
tastes and platform opportunities may also
change.
Build buffers into your schedules.

What To Do If Disaster Strikes
Think of ways to run lemonades into lemons.
If your game gets turned down on Steam,
consider holding a “Not on Steam Sale”
campaign.

“There’s no such thing as bad
publicity”
This is only true with controversial issues.

Could The Controversy Be Better
Handled?

“There’s no such thing as bad
publicity”
However, things that lose your customers
trust in your brand can be disastrous.

Marketing Cannot Save A Bad Game!

Boss Battle Ahead!
There will be a test on Levels 7-9 the next
time we meet!

Away Mission
Write three sample e-mail posts to go our to
your community mailing list:
 Game Project Post
 Game Review Post
 Game Topic Post

LAFS Marketing and Monetization Lecture 9: Community Development And Management

LAFS Marketing and Monetization Lecture 9: Community Development And Management

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LAFS Marketing and Monetization Lecture 9: Community Development And Management