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Have you ever conducted a C.R.U.D.E. analysis to assess the effectiveness of your game positioning statement? This method is a valuable test for evaluating the robustness of your positioning statement, which forms the foundation of your marketing strategy and campaigns. C.R.U.D.E. stands for:<figure id="figure-82ti7gq4nkm3dillqu"><img id="82ti7gq4nkm3dillqu" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/30sUQ8ldVRE1vGyPGDCTxjXaTfHLLfqBnVVnRWl8UKI0zHLgRbQ7ZNGXyvvxEtQU.png" alt="Neon Retro Arcade Machines In A Games Room" title="Neon Retro Arcade Machines In A Games Room" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 rounded-lg md:rounded-xl lg:rounded-2xl" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionX="undefined" data-positionY="undefined" data-fullWidth="false"/></figure>Credibility: Is your positioning statement honest and distinctive? Can it be trusted that the game truly aligns with it? Relevancy: Does the positioning statement hold meaning and relevance for your target audience? Is it something they find valuable? Uniqueness: Is your positioning statement genuinely set apart from your primary competitors? Is it differentiating your game effectively? Durability: Will your positioning statement remain relevant and effective over time? This aspect is particularly critical for Games as a Service, which may have a lifespan spanning decades. Ease of Communication: Can your positioning statement be succinctly and clearly conveyed as an elevator pitch for your game? In a world where you have very little time to grab your audience's attention, clarity and uniqueness are paramount. While not the only method for testing a positioning statement, the C.R.U.D.E. analysis has proven effective for my teams over the years. What other approaches do you use to ensure your game's positioning statement is strong and resonates with your audience?

C.R.U.D.E. Analysis

As a final follow up to my post on “Community First” game companies we analyze why Lost Ark was our lowest ranked game team in 2023 and how Amazon might be able to turn things around. Check the comments for the link to the original article and yesterday’s write up on GTA and the analysis of WoW.<figure id="figure-j05qgzetgm395oh7i"><img id="j05qgzetgm395oh7i" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/17EK7nUFV4lr12MvUQDKR9KZjMswt914MsBZpsANOZZd9aNRgY0uXUPzyZbLe2jl.png" alt="gamification and gaming technology, motivation games in business and education, woman hand touching dice icon, square banner in neon style" title="gamification and gaming technology, motivation games in business and education, woman hand touching dice icon, square banner in neon style" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 rounded-lg md:rounded-xl lg:rounded-2xl" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/17EK7nUFV4lr12MvUQDKR9KZjMswt914MsBZpsANOZZd9aNRgY0uXUPzyZbLe2jl.png" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure>SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS Lost Ark unfortunately was given the lowest rating out of all the games we reviewed. The Lost Ark social media presence was our worst performer on two metrics: 1. Total Brand posts and 2. Sentiment. Lost Ark was the only title that had a overall six month negative social media sentiment score of the 10 title swe analyzed. Major brand collaborations such as the Witcher drove up engagement and impressions which ultimately pushes up their total social volume. OPPORTUNITYWith such a large active player-base Lost Ark may have the biggest up-side of any of the games we profiled if the publisher engages and puts “Community First” COMMUNITY ANALYSIS Due to the hands-off nature of Amazon Games, the largest Discord server (second largest we profiled) for Lost Ark is fan operated. There is an Amazon Games Discord that has little activity from the Community or Community managers. Amazon Games prefers communicating on their owned forums and website which is much less visited than their biggest Discord channel, which we profiled here. &nbsp;Also, there is a disconnect with fans. Fans want to hear from the developer (Smilegate) directly not Amazon. There is a negative vibe and a feeling of “second rate citizens” that fans in the west have since the developer does not directly engage and players in Korea get all firsthand information. OPPORTUNITYInstead of creating a brand-new Lost Ark Discord, Amazon should aim to tap into the 210,000+ and growing community Discord and host community activities, AMAs and use it as a gateway to effectively communicate with the community and gather feedback from the already large servers. In addition, there is an opportunity for Smilegate to have a presence more directly with the fans. ENGAGEMENT ANALYSIS Although ranking fourth in our engagement percentage, Lost Ark fumbled their response to major events that impacted the player base greatly. In early Jan, Lost Ark issued a notice to players about having banned bot accounts. Inadvertently, due to backend issues, real and active player accounts had also been banned leaving those players frustrated and unable to access their accounts. Additionally, their Steam player score was affected as well. The fact that the accounts were banned created an uproar. However, what fueled player disappointment even more was the lack of communication, transparency, and details about future actions from the community team. This left many players irritated and frustrated. To appease player complaints, a False Ban Wave Compensation Package was also created. The information surrounding this compensation package however was not publicly communicated on major platforms such as Twitter. Players became aware of the compensation through Discord and community forums and discussions, word of mouth, and news from the game’s website. No official announcement regarding the comp package was ever made leaving a lot of players out of the loop in a time when open dialogue was key.

Lost Ark – Our lowest “Community First” ranked game team

GTA’s team was middle of the pack in our “Community First” scoring&nbsp;As a follow up to my post on “Community First” game companies I’ll go deeper into another one of the game teams we studied – The GTA online team.&nbsp;<figure id="figure-62y4gh2tm37n33tx"><img id="62y4gh2tm37n33tx" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/30EOtASV0DgWd9esXmT3lCvAzwYk8x2iTxYuZFeDIsYxpJ4U5bDAhQ32tXTdP1V5.png" alt="Metaverse Cyberpunk Style City With Artificial Man Walking On Street, Neon Lighting On Building Exteriors, Flying Cars And Drones" title="Metaverse Cyberpunk Style City With Artificial Man Walking On Street, Neon Lighting On Building Exteriors, Flying Cars And Drones" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 rounded-lg md:rounded-xl lg:rounded-2xl" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/30EOtASV0DgWd9esXmT3lCvAzwYk8x2iTxYuZFeDIsYxpJ4U5bDAhQ32tXTdP1V5.png" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure>SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSISGTA has the third highest total of social media volume (#1 Fortnite) but only a fraction actually comes from Rockstar with just 392 pieces of content from the dev team over the six-month period we studied (only Lost Ark published less). GTA is also our second worst performer as a % of total “engagement” content published at only 23%. Only Destiny 2 was lower.&nbsp;Some of this stems from the fact that Rockstar for the most part does not support individual game social media channels but rather consolidates around “Rockstar” social media channels.&nbsp;OPPORTUNITYGTA’s fan base is massive but toxic and juvenile. Perhaps this is why Rockstar engages so infrequently. There could be an opportunity to lean into the snarky attitude the players have and embrace it to allow for a more self-deprecating social media personality. Also, giving players of a specific game (like GTA) their own separate social media destinations to express themselves.COMMUNITY ANALYSISGrand Theft Auto Online has a massive community within Discord, and most users note the lack of involvement/company engagement outside of the twitter announcements and updates. Several users do not feel heard and are unaware of the “Feedback” section on the official website.The biggest fan operated Discord that GTA has is a very toxic place and has the lowest net sentiment ranking of any of the games we analyzed.OPPORTUNITYRockstar was ahead of their time, creating Rockstar Social Club as the gateway for the community to interact with each other 15 years ago. But as social media evolved and community channels like Discord gained prominence Rockstar has not kept pace. The community has evolved and has a more standardized way of communicating on Discord and Rockstar has let that go with little involvement. A big missed opportunity to embrace Discord or support it more directly.ENGAGEMENT ANALYSISWhen interacting with its community, GTA tends to focus on informational content and not engage with it. They are very infrequent with follow-up comments or posts and are completely absent from some channels like TikTok. Note- they have an official TikTok with over 770K followers and 0 videos posted.&nbsp;Of all the games reviewed, GTA Online is the only game that does not have its own platforms. You can only find GTA’s posts on Rockstar Games’ social channels, including other titles such as Red Dead Redemption and Bully. This is evident in their engagement ranking of 9 out of 10 with only 23% of their content intended for engagement.#community #GTA

GTA – “Just the Facts!”

As a follow up to my post on “Community First” game companies from yesterday I’ll go deeper into our top scoring team – The Blizzard WoW dev team. Check the comments for the link to the original article.<figure id="figure-9c5wmfd8h3m36c9r1h"><img id="9c5wmfd8h3m36c9r1h" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/11APXN0h8dthRDrCCXxkxD8CpPsAUKNZ5pbRuFzDq7FnF48oUwWDNaxS6OJJ5299.png" alt="Visual contents concept. Social networking service. Streaming video. communication network." title="Visual contents concept. Social networking service. Streaming video. communication network." class="object-cover bg-gray-100 rounded-lg md:rounded-xl lg:rounded-2xl" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/11APXN0h8dthRDrCCXxkxD8CpPsAUKNZ5pbRuFzDq7FnF48oUwWDNaxS6OJJ5299.png" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure>SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSISWoW is our overall top “Community First” title from 2023. They achieved this with an exemplary Social Media strategy. As most games total audience grows, they usually struggle to maintain a high net sentiment value but not WoW. Second only to Fortnite for total Social Media brand post volume, WoW is also our second highest social media net sentiment scorer (BDO #1).They do a wonderful job of spreading out this content on multiple channels and creating interesting and engaging content optimized for the channel. They do multiple posts per day on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and are using TikTok better than any other game except Fortnite.OPPORTUNITYWoW is best in class among the games we profiled. With a consistent and engaging presence on all social media outlets, but there still exists opportunity to get more fan-created volume. Could it be that WoW fans are just not as interested in posting on social as younger GaaS gamers?COMMUNITY ANALYSISThe WoW owned forum has two key purposes. First, to report on and debate the latest updates / WoW news – what they enjoy, are disappointed in, or want more of. Secondly, showing their fandom through fan creative, providing helpful guides, and giving tips on play.OPPORTUNITYWoW currently only has a brand owned forum. But, with multiple fan-led Discords as the go-to place for community conversation among gamers, notably Millennials and Gen Z, develop a brand led Discord to engage with the broader WoW community beyond traditional social platforms and promote greater conversation around day-to-day play.ENGAGEMENT ANALYSISWe find that the game teams that achieve a 50/50 balance between content intended to inform and content intended to engage are the most successful. WoW’s entry into TikTok was a stroke of genius making their debut TikTok by using a very well-known player mishap that has spanned not only across the many generations of WoW players but across gaming genres as well. Leeroy Jenkins happened more than 20 years ago and somehow is still very relevant to certain situations today. The team was able to rekindle memories of one of the most iconic disastrous plays in gaming history, EVER, in one post.WoW’s social team is in tune not only with their own player base, but they also understand the types of content that a certain platform’s audience desires. With this understanding they’re able to consistently curate content for those platforms &nbsp;repurposing content to other channels such as YouTube #shorts or Instagram Reels.

WoW – Tops the “Community First” list

Which online game operator is the most “Community First”? So, in the beginning of 2023 I did a research study with some colleagues. We wanted to see if we could devise a way to measure how healthy a games community was and how engaged the game team was with that community. We called this “Community First”. Now granted “Community First” could have lots of interpretations so we set out to try and define it for ourselves. Is it just the absence of Toxicity? Is it a high percentage of engagement? Is a robust content marketing strategy from the dev team “Community First”? Maybe all of this and more? Initially we wanted to look at lots of games but quickly we realized that it was going to be quite labor intensive, so we cut down the list to 10 games profiled. These 10 games are for the most part large established online games with active player bases and robust online social and community presences. You could argue that we should have included more or different titles, but this is where we started. We wanted to create a scoring system to try and reduce subjective bias from our research so we chose metrics we could pull and devised a rubric. For this analysis, we pulled six months of data (from Aug 22 – Jan 23) and created three categories of study: Social Media Community&nbsp; EngagementFor social media we pulled data on their owned Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok channels (if the game had them). We pulled total content volume, total original content (from the Dev) and net sentiment (we used the Netbase tool). &nbsp; For community we chose the games primary channel of communication. In some cases, this was their official Discord or forum and in other cases this was a fan run Discord or forum. We then scraped six months of conversations data total volume and sentiment. Finally, we wanted to analyze what kind of content the dev team was making for their communities. We pulled all their original content and separated each piece into whether we felt it was intended to engage (created to have a discussion around like memes, fan art or polls) or whether it was intended to inform (to give factual information like launch dates or patch notes).&nbsp; Once we had all this data we ranked each game on each of these scales from 1-10. We wanted to try and normalize the effect of volume measures, so we reduced the weight of metrics like total post volume or Discord threads and gave more weight to sentiment and original content.&nbsp; So have a look at the image, you will see where our study netted out. This was out of a total 10-point scale. From our analysis the Blizzard WoW team is our top “Community First” group.&nbsp;<figure id="figure-mdf924aimrm34rea47"><img id="mdf924aimrm34rea47" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/8W5MOORnpU00I7uxtfkyhHL5GpgP7pedhGJbgOLJcaqyb779YNIupmc3pZHCuiiJ.png" alt="gamification and game development concept in neon style" title="gamification and game development concept in neon style" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionX="undefined" data-positionY="undefined" data-fullWidth="false"/></figure> We have deep dives on three of these games that Ill post later this week where you can see more on how we came up with these scores and what our takeaway was for each. I’ll show you more info on how the WoW team does this. In addition, Ill share case studies on GTA and Lost Ark.&nbsp;

What game is the most "Community First"?

What’s it like to run a highly successful live service mobile game from the marketing viewpoint? Back in 2019 I was fortunate enough to be running a team that was growing the most successful mobile RPG of that year, Marvel Strike Force.&nbsp; Here is a snapshot case study of just three weeks of work as we geared up to support the in game and out of game promos coinciding with the theatrical release of the movie Dark Phoenix.&nbsp;<figure id="figure-shj72qhcifm34qzzna"><img id="shj72qhcifm34qzzna" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/3n6WtW39BgOy6Du1NGMMjrOeE9TlWKbBBwjCwHjWV1ipg6wsTAmUuS54KxLUM728.png" alt="gamification and game development concept in neon style" title="gamification and game development concept in neon style" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 rounded-sm md:rounded-md lg:rounded-lg" style="aspect-ratio: 1/1; object-position: center center;" data-corners="small" data-aspect="1:1" data-caption="" data-positionX="undefined" data-positionY="undefined" data-fullWidth="false"/></figure> From 5/21/19 – 6/7/19 (the movie opening) our team executed no less than 200 marketing tactical elements. Supporting the live ops team and in game store elements we were tasked with not only maximizing UA but with maximizing in game item sales of new characters being added to the game.&nbsp; This began months ahead of the actual execution where marketing and development worked together to understand and agree on all campaign elements, what new features the game was rolling out and what new characters were going to be featured. This required deep integration between many executional teams on both the marketing and development side.&nbsp; Since this was an Xmen campaign the dev team wanted to add fan favorite Colossus into the game as well as film stars Psylock and Dark Phoenix herself. Even with a less than stellar movie opening we achieved the highest ever (to that point) per character sales revenue for these new Heros. For a time Colossus was grossing near $5K per minute! Highly functional live ops driven marketing takes a decidedly skilled team and complete integration with and trust from the development team to be successful and this certainly was the case at FoxNext.&nbsp; #LiveOps #MobileMarketing