Importance of building your game community in Southeast Asia and India

Authored by MeiZhen Wang, Business Development Manager, Google Play Games Southeast Asia and Vinay Charaniya, Business Development Manager, Google Play Games India

Nurturing player communities is essential to building long-term loyalty. Developers across genres agree that building and nurturing their gaming communities is critical for the long-term engagement of their users in India and Southeast Asia (INSEA). Capturing user feedback via these communities enables them to make relevant product improvements. Additionally, inputs from user communities lead to validation and quantification of feature requests, thus helping game developers with their product roadmap.

From a player’s perspective, if their feedback has been incorporated into the game, it showcases a game developer’s willingness to cater to their specific requirements, making the players feel that their voice has been heard.

Challenges developers face when building a community in INSEA

Building a thriving gaming community in the INSEA region comes with its unique set of challenges:

1. Without local resources, catering to diverse languages and cultures can get significantly challenging.
2. Fierce competition exists among developers to attract and retain the best content creators in their community.
3. Finding the fine balance between user engagement and maintaining a positive environment for all is crucial. Users in the INSEA region tend to be quite vocal, and thus, developers should be open to accepting feedback as part of the process.

Effective strategies for establishing a robust gaming community

1. Leveraging content and creator

This has proven to be a powerful strategy for building a game community. The approach can vary significantly depending on your resource. Here are 3 broad approaches:

ㅤa) ㅤ‘Developer First’ approach: Developers focus on sharing content through their official social accounts, with a strong emphasis on direct interaction. Developers who prefer direct control over their content distribution would adopt this approach, but will require more resources to manage the channels.

ㅤb) ㅤ ‘Creator First’ approach: Developers who do not have the resources for local community management could adopt the ‘Creator First’ approach, where creators are the primary vehicle for game promotion and community-building. For example, Supercell’s main community and content driver in SEA is through their Creator Program, whereby local creators are incentivized to create content for Clash of Clans. Creators get exclusive sneak peaks to upcoming updates of the game, as well as invitations to test and play. As part of the Creator Program, frequent offline engagements also help foster strong relationships between creators and developers.

ㅤc) ㅤ ‘Hybrid’ Approach: This would be the most ideal approach once the developer has set up a strong foundation in the region by maintaining developer-owned platforms, while also nurturing a select group of creators dedicated to the game.

2. Localization

Localization is a crucial factor, especially in regions as diverse as SEA and India. This can extend beyond language to encompass culture and customs.

Each market has its unique cultural norms, necessitating a nuanced approach. For instance, the acceptance of content featuring LGBTQ+ themes varies across markets; the Philippines is more open than others, while it remains a taboo in markets like Indonesia and Malaysia. When it comes to selecting content creators, users in markets like Indonesia, Thailand, and India prefer local creators and content, while Philippines and Singapore are more accepting of global content or creators.

3. Engaging users

Top developers successfully engage users within their community to help build and grow it. Segmenting their most engaged users and connecting with them is often the first step for developers. Creating a structured calendar of activities based on local priorities is the next.

Developers often utilize the following strategies to engage with their users in the community:

• Communicating with users regularly, even if it’s a simple email reply, works well.
• Providing custom responses instead of AI-generated or bot-like responses is important, especially for reviews.
• Engaging with users in their own language or tone. For example, top developers often respond to their India users in Hinglish (a mix of Hindi+English).
• Acknowledging user comments makes them feel heard and showcases that developers are invested in their community.
• C-level teams respond to user comments directly on a periodic basis.

Apart from the above, if developers have the resources, creating content or in-game events based on user feedback can significantly enhance users’ sense of connection with the game community.

Leading content creators may also double up as top users within the community. Identifying them and incorporating their feedback becomes doubly important for developers. Supergaming, based in Pune, India, had one such eureka moment when they collaborated with one of India’s top content creators — TechnoGamerz. Not only did they incorporate his feedback in the gameplay of their newly launched game — Battlestars 4x4, they also introduced him as a playable character.

“Introducing Techno Gamerz as a playable character in Battle Stars was our strategic initiative to converge the world of gaming, player community, and content creators in a much more meaningful manner. It is not just about marketing our game launch but also about creators and community being at the forefront”

- Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Marketing Director at SuperGaming

4. Leveraging eSports

The impact of eSports on growing your game community is multifaceted as it caters to a diverse audience. Mobile Legends Bang Bang (MLBB) has done this quite well in SEA, where they strategically harnessed the power of eSports to forge a robust and engaged game community. Here are some strategies that they used:

ㅤa) ㅤSegmentation: MLBB segments their eSports community into three main audiences:

• Hardcore enthusiasts, who ardently follow their favorite teams and engage regularly with content dedicated to the eSports scene. This group also tends to be the most loyal players in the game.
• Casual players, who view eSports content as a credible source for improving their in-game skills, making purchasing decisions and experimenting with new game elements such as skins and heroes.
• New audiences, who are non-players but get subsequently introduced to the game through eSports content and teams. They are a unique group of players who are intrigued by the personalities and stories of their favorite teams and players. Therefore, eSports serves as a platform to engage existing players and could also be a catalyst to attract new and diverse groups of players, if done right.

ㅤb) ㅤMeasuring success metrics: To measure the success of their eSports efforts, MLBB employs various metrics (apart from brand affinity and content creation), such as:

• Online viewership, particularly peak concurrent viewers, gauges the excitement during live broadcasts.
• User satisfaction, marked by minimal technical difficulties and interruptions, is another key indicator.
• Offline events are assessed based on viewership, ticket sales, and venue foot traffic.
• An increase in partnerships and collaborations with brands, including renowned names like ROG, showcases the expanding influence of eSports.
• eSports mentions in articles, content, and media partnerships signify their growing presence.

ㅤc) ㅤPartnerships & engagements: MLBB actively engages with professional eSports teams, players, and organizations. They’ve established dedicated league operations teams to liaise effectively with professional gamers, fostering feedback and information exchange for better collaboration. This partnership extends to various activities, including appearances in eSports trailers, interviews, tutorials, and on-ground events which creates direct connections between players and the game community.

ㅤd) ㅤBusiness growth: MLBB has been running the MLBB Professional League in Indonesia for 8 years as a franchise system, whereby current professional players nurture the next generation of pro players and eventually form their own leagues. This way, teams can compete for eSport titles and have stakes in building a community that advances the local eSports ecosystem. Eventually, these professional players can represent their countries in international tournaments such as SEA Games or International eSports World Championships, and over time, the games can transcend to represent aspirational dreams of their players too.

“The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang community has benefited greatly from the presence of esports, which plays a crucial role in its development. As esports continues to evolve, it provides players with the motivation to pursue their dreams of not just becoming professional players but also becoming content creators specializing in gameplay and analysis. It is proven that aspirations are within reach.”

– MOONTON Games

Moderating user generated content within the community

The gaming developers we interviewed unanimously agreed that moderating user content within the community is critical for nurturing a healthy community. Developers need to define clear rules, educate players on the same, and then implement them uniformly. Developers can also deploy automated moderation tools to moderate user generated content with the community. These tools can include the following capabilities:

• Review potentially inappropriate comments or live chat before publishing
• Create a blocked words list for swiftly flagging inappropriate comments and content
• Hide comments from flagged commenters

Evaluating impact of community building

There are a variety of ways that developers are currently evaluating the impact of their community building activities. Direct attribution to in-game revenue can be a challenge but measuring the number of followers or members, the number of views, and engagement on content (including number of comments) are metrics that game developers are using for evaluating impact.

Top developers go one level deeper in their analysis of views and content — they measure the amount of user generated content and also the number of organic views for any content. Other measurable metrics are CTRs and the length of content being viewed.

Apart from quantitative metrics, it is also important to analyze qualitative feedback at periodic intervals. This can be utilized for new feature ideas as well as for identifying in-game issues and bugs.

Conclusion

Nurturing a vibrant gaming community in regions like INSEA requires a multifaceted approach that encompasses content, creators, localization, and eSports engagement. By understanding the diverse cultures and preferences of the player base and leveraging these insights to tailor content and engagement strategies, developers can foster loyalty and engagement.

Developers should start at a pace and scale that’s comfortable, as community-building takes time. Ultimately, a well-cultivated gaming community not only ensures long-term player loyalty but also represents a collaborative and thriving ecosystem where players’ voices are heard, fostering a sense of belonging and shared enthusiasm for the game.

Importance of building your game community in Southeast Asia and India was originally published in Google Play Apps & Games on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.