From there we allow the culture of the community to evolve naturally, giving us rituals, rhythms and content strategies that can be scaled in a meaningful way. A fan-first approach aims to build a community as early as possible, often when a game is still in pre-production.īeginning with small groups in private Discord servers, these early bonds between studio and players kick-start the collaboration, trust-building and insight gathering. Too many go-to-market plans put an emphasis on paid awareness and customer acquisition, without much thought for community building. One of our clients is the brilliantly named SuperEvilMegaCorp and together we’ve built out incredibly vivid mobile segments for their new title using the Solsten (formerly 12 Traits) tool. There are few spaces as fascinating as gaming for a planner to work. The builders, the daredevils, the nurturers, the nihilists. Create segments based on these distinct playstyles and needs. Work out why they play, how they play, who influences them, what thrills them, what pisses them off. ‘Jeff the junior sales executive who likes social media and values time with friends’ is not going to inspire meaningful comms. (Thank you, Richard Shotton!) Eve Online is a perfect example.Īside from the most casual of casual games, you’re generally writing for audiences with deep knowledge and high critical capacity. And since they helped build it all, they will value it all the more. Some players will be very vocal, some less visible, but collectively their sentiment and signals should help shape your product, your brand and your comms, all of which will be better for their involvement and will increase their chance of ongoing purchases. You’re looking to attract long-term collaborators and a mindset of ‘we build it together’. It supports the notion of ‘we build it, they buy it’ – which goes against the way most modern game economies work.
The old marketing staple of the ‘consumer’ is unhelpful. At least a bit.)Īnyway, here are five principles of the fan-first approach.
(Incidentally, we spent an hour together going deep on all things Eve and I think I won him over. It’s a different approach to traditional broadcast marketing, and it’s essential to win the trust, loyalty and advocacy of gamers like my friend at Fanfest. A value exchange built on community and collaboration. The principles of fan-first marketingīrands powering fans powering brands. That game surpassed $1bn in lifetime revenue last year. Our friends at Supercell live and breathe this with its stated mission to make Brawl Stars the most community-centric game ever.
And the more gaming brands involve fans, the deeper their belonging becomes. More than that, active fan communities fuel priceless insight, innovation and creativity. Fandom is the engine of loyalty in fact, ‘superfans’ provide up to 72% of total entertainment revenues. This continuous revenue model needs continuous demand, which is where fandom comes in. 80% of global revenue comes from in-game purchases and subscriptions. This is not an audience you can distract with shiny ads, or hype without substance, and it’s certainly not an audience whose specific needs and ideas you can ignore.