Today is the day to bring up one of the most important issues when we talk about games: community. Ten years ago it was unthinkable for us to say that a community would have such an impact on products. Today it is practically impossible (or should be!) for us to think about creating a product without thinking about the most engaged target audience.
And when we talk about people, there is no magic formula: it is daily and continuous work that must be done well and you have to pay close attention, because it always changes. Remember, we are talking about people, who are fickle and flexible, not numbers or exact science.
And just as important as your product, the community can be one of your company’s most valuable assets. Want to know why? Come with me.
What is community?
Let’s start with the basics: what is community? Speaking by definition, community comes from the term communitate and is a group of individuals who share a common interest. A community can be music, art, movies and many other things, including games.
In the midst of entertainment, it is very common for fans or enthusiasts of a given title to get together to share information, exchange experiences and keep up with news. And when it comes to games, it’s quite common for these people to get together to play, eventually.
The passion moves
When we talk about community, we talk about passion linked to your brand and/or product. And someone in love does everything to show their love.
Remember: we’re not always talking about money, there are things that are either too difficult or too expensive for a company to have. For example: if we’re talking about a new character launch in your game, of course we’re talking about a whole marketing campaign to make this new feature a success. It costs money. Now imagine that you have a super engaged community, like Riot, for example. Having these people talking through their personal channels and interacting with the company’s channels makes your engagement and reach huge, something you would need to spend a good deal of money on if you were going to do it through paid campaigns.
Understand why it’s important?
It’s not an easy job, of course. If you have a person responsible for this on your team, the famous Community Manager, it’s better. But if you don’t have it, it doesn’t mean you can’t have your community – through social networks it’s possible to instigate your community and make it your best friend.
Why are passionate fans one of the best assets for your brand / product?
Here’s a clear example: a fan started a petition to Activision to have Chorão (former lead singer of the brazilian rock band Charlie Brown Jr.) in the next Tony Hawk game. Chorão was a Skateboard enthusiast (he used to skate on stage, for example) and even Tony Hawk himself enjoyed a tribute show to the band in 2019, which took place in São Paulo.
Fans started a campaign, out of passion. With no money involved, nearly 27,000 people signed a full organic campaign for a game that was advertised, gaining support from national geek media outlets to endorse the campaign. How cool is that?
Personally, I would like Chorão to be available on Tony Hawk Pro Skater, but what the community achieved was unprecedented: one of Charlie Brown Jr’s songs, Confisco, is available in-game.
It is also important to reinforce that the more connected with your brand/product, the more people will consume it, which ensures that the lifetime of your product (and probably your revenue) increases considerably. The more engaged with a brand/product, the more people feel motivated to spend with it, and so all this passion turns into money for your project.
The subject is wide, and soon we will bring more content about it here, about how to have an engaged and excited community with your product.
See you later!
Images by Gerd Altmann and tookapic on Pixabay
