Turn the ‘everyday’ into engaging content

Video games development is a lengthy process and it can be difficult to keep your fans consistently interested in your brand. Effective community management plays a vital role in this, directly interacting with the audience and keeping online conversation about their brand active and positive.
The usual tactics employed in this include competitions and sharing new assets. Sometimes a great opportunity for a random act of kindness will present itself, which a good community manager should spot and attempt to execute.
These activities are positive and have repeatedly shown to cause increases in online conversations surrounding the respective brands. Compared to most verticals, the games industry is good at community management but opportunities are being missed.
There seems to be the belief that most content has to be related to the company’s games. Satisfying this demand can be difficult. There are only so many assets you can share.
In years past, I worked for a games publisher (with a sabbatical stint at one of their developers). It was amazing at first but, like all jobs, it became ‘usual’. I doubt I am alone with this. I suspect that most people working in the games industry have, at some point, thought of their job as the ‘daily grind’. You have to remember that, as far as your audience is concerned, you are living the dream. A large portion of them would give their right arm to work for a games company.
Developer diaries are a good start but they tend to focus on the game itself, featuring different members of the team talking you through the new exciting features. Don’t underestimate the appeal of the day to day life in the games industry. The more you can let your fans feel a part of the development and publishing process, the better.
With this approach, you can produce engaging content for your audience at relatively little cost. Some starting questions might include:
 ‘How did your game designers get started?’
 ‘Who is the best tester? Do they have any tips?’
 ‘What’s it like to run a games company?’
 ‘What was is like to be at that recent games event (not games news, just behind the scenes stuff)?’
 ‘What did you do for that team member’s birthday?’
This kind of content doesn’t cost anything. It’s sourced from the day-to-day workings of a games company that will occur whether they are being shared with the audience or not. So get the team involved. You can bet that when you approach them everyone will have ideas about things they find interesting and would like to pass on to the fans.
Few industries have this kind of appeal for their audience, so take advantage of it!