YoWorld
Big Viking Games
Working at Big Viking Games, I have been able to apply knowledge that I’ve acquired through previous experience in the game industry, as well as implement learned skills and strategies through facilitating multiple initiatives, and navigating difficult and sensitive issues reported by players. Understanding the demographic, advocating for players, and empathy has allowed me to build a strong rapport with the community.
Within my first six months of working in the game industry as a Community Manager, I was promoted to Intermediate Community Manager, and continued to work towards my goal of becoming Lead!
My responsibilities include:
Participate in monthly community brainstorms with other CMs to establish KPIs, discuss potential upcoming campaigns and initiatives
Book and facilitate meeting with the Product team to pitch pre discussed initiatives, collaborate on showcasing assets, and get approval for planned giveaways
Create the community calendar
Build monthly analytics reports and use those to strategize the next monthly social media plan
Input Jira tickets
Breakdown campaigns by due dates in Google Sheets and delegate initiatives among the team
Monitor social media and forums for feedback
Facilitate bi-weekly syncs with Player Support to discuss player issues and feedback
Work closely with QA on player reported issues and provide repro steps when available
Communicate players suggestions to the content team
Build graphics for social using
Animate
Photoshop
Canva
EZGIF
Work closely with Art and graphic design for additional graphics
Create posts that target multiple play styles (Collectors, Decorators, Fashion)
Monitor analytics and cross check with KPIs
Organize and host livestream events
Guest co-ordination
Technical/production of the stream itself
Organization all operational support
Advocating for players in various stakeholder settings, speaking up for the best possible player experience
YoWorld Live
Within my first month at Big Viking Games, I proposed doing a YoWorld Livestream on Facebook. The two main goals for this initiative were:
1. Engagement: Utilize live interaction as a way to drive the community to the Facebook page to increase engagement & reach for future posts.
2. Players Feel Heard: Ultimately, players want their voice to be acknowledged. By offering a space for live communication, players get more of a sense they are being listened to.
Turning this proposal into a reality meant bringing multiple stakeholders together in order to:
Attaining graphics for the overlays
Reaching out to other Community Managers to moderate the chat
Investigate ways to run a contest for in-game cash prize giveaways
Set up streaming equipment/software & run multiple technical tests
Doing a minute by minute breakdown of how the stream would go
YoWorld Live 2.0
For the 13th YoWorld Anniversary, we wanted to do something special to celebrate. As the previous YoWorld Live was such a success, I was able to take what I had learned last time and apply fresh, exciting ideas for YoWorld Live 2.0.
As there were only two weeks until the anniversary, I buckled down and got to work planning what this version of YoWorld Live would look like. This process included:
Gauging interest with other Vikings about participation in the stream
Creating a proposal document with established KPIs and general overview of what the livestream would look like
Outlining key stakeholders and milestones
Creating a full, colour coded minute-by-minute breakdown
Proposing the idea to stakeholders
Get product approval on in-game currency and ‘grand prize’ exclusive asset giveaways
Once the art was complete slot overlays, nameplates, and other visuals into StreamLabs OBS to reflect the timeline of the stream
Creating Jira tickets for art to design additional overlays, nameplates, social hype banners, and a ‘look back’ timeline of YoWorld Milestones
While the solo stream was a great way to test the waters the first time around, I wanted to incorporate more Vikings for YoWorld 2.0. As one of the goals for the livestream was humanization of the company, I felt as though it was important for fans to see that I wasn’t the only face behind YoWorld.
With Viking Dylan’s charismatic personality, combined with our off-stream chemistry, he was an easy choice for a livestream co-host.
I wanted to take this opportunity to shine a much deserved light on our talented artists. Viking Tommy, the Art Director, enthusiastically agreed to not only participate, but also provided me with an artist created video showcasing the work that goes into animated asset creation. Players were absolutely fascinated at the time and detail that went into this, and had some wonderful things to say during this showcase.
The previous YoWorld Live included a dress up segment where the players helped me dress my avatar. While it was fun, I had thought of a more fun and engaging way to incorporate this. Viking Dylan and I went head-to-head in a timed avatar creation competition hosted by Viking Rachel, the Community Manager for our other title Fish World.
As none of this was scripted, it very quickly became a fun and silly segment where Rachel would spin the wheel of stipulations I had created, and yell out what we were limited to using when decorating our avatars.
Following the competition, Viking Rachel asked Viking Dylan and I a series of questions about our created monstrosities. This lead to great back-and-forth while we created lore for them that the viewers LOVED. Players were encouraged to vote for their favourite, and the winning avatar was then created into an in-game NPC, and granted to all the players that attended the livestream.
YoWorld Live Anniversary Highlight Reel
Social Media
Graphic Design Work
Often times, due to the fast paced nature of content release in YoWorld, I create the content for Social Media showing off new items, getting player feedback, as well as community run initiatives using tools such as Canva, OBS, Ez-Gif, Photoshop, and iMovie.
Another goal I had with managing the YoWorld community was to boost Facebook engagement as the game had a large following to begin with. I put effort into cultivating fun and thoughtful Facebook posts in an attempt to drive engagement, and after a month and a half was able to raise post engagement by 95%.
As a way to create brand awareness that would span across multiple social platforms, I took the lead on growing engagement for YoWorld on Instagram. In less than a month, I was able to increase the page’s follows/engagement organically by utilizing in-game tools, other social platforms, and community run contests.
Community Engagement
My absolute favourite part of being a Community Manager is when I get the chance to communicate with our players in real time. With this initiative, not only was I able to interact with our player base to build a rapport, but this also incentivized them to play more with the chance of acquiring exclusive items.
A challenge that came with this initiative was that, due to the size of the parties, lag became so overwhelming that some players who attended were unable to claim the free gifts. To mitigate this, once the last party was complete, I placed the NPC holding the free items in a live zone for all players to enjoy.
HTML5 Conversion
Less than 6 months into working at Big Viking Games, YoWorld underwent a conversion to HTML5 as Flash had become obsolete. During this time, I took initiative on creating a call to action for player volunteers in the early stages of HTML5 testing.
Once the players were selected, I created all of the preliminary posts to guide players through the process of testing and reporting issues that they found. These pages included:
Welcome Post
How to Opt Out of Testing
Tutorials (How to take/post screenshots/videos, How to report bugs, etc.)
Known Bugs/Fixes
Hardware Specifications for players who wanted to contribute
The first handful of testers would report issues, which I spent time going through, logging, and replying to each individual post to gather more information, or to simply acknowledge that I had logged the bug that they had reported.
As we began rolling out to players, I was responsible for maintaining transparent communication with the YoWorld Community. This included releasing forum updates when new builds were released, and updating the fixed and known issues list.
