Seeing your fans as more than customers

Graeme Struthers with indie publisher Devolver Digital took to the DICE Europe stage today, to discuss the outside-the-box ways in which the company has managed to utilize its fanbase. Devolver realized early on that its ever-growing community could provide more than simply eyes-on trailers and video game discounts. The team started thinking of different ways to get fans involved, and in turn, get more exposure for the games they were pushing, rather than simply going down the usual routes you might expect from a publisher. For example, after Hotline Miami launched, Devolver put together a promo video based on footage of fans wearing masks -- later, another trailer had fans calling into a literal hotline in Miami, and explaining what they thought about the game. All of this provided the team with plenty of different ways to tackle PR that they hadn't really considered before, and Devolver now consistently looks for these sorts of different ways to get fans involved. But sometimes these opportunities have managed to fall into the publisher's lap too. When a fan copied the Hotline Miami 2 trailer and created a homage in Team Fortress 2, for example, earning even more hits than the original trailer, Devolver was even more convinced that building a dedicated fanbase, and getting them involved in exposing their games to the world, was definitely the way forward. Even during hard times, the company has observed interesting ways to utilize fans. When Gods Will be Watching launched recently, for example, it was criticized by many fans for being too brutally hard. This was tough for Devolver to take, as the publisher doesn't often get involved with the creative side of games. But when the developer suggested that he put an easier mode in the game, called "The Mercy Update," Devolver was on-board with the idea. After it launched, many of the original Devolver fans who were very angry about the game, ended up changing their tune. "It turned fans from being unhappy into evangelical people," noted Struthers. "It made them feel like they had been listened to - like the developer had done this for them."