Building a community in gaming: what opportunities working with the audience can bring

Social media is a tool that not only allows you to promote your company, engage your audience, and build product knowledge. It also has many less obvious benefits, such as the ability to get ideas for truly important and useful updates for players to implement in the app. 

Today, Magic Jigsaw Puzzles and Puzzle Villa, the company's main titles, have more than half a million users in their communities, with a monthly reach of about two million. Anastasia Zaiceva, Chief Communications Officer at ZiMAD, shares her experience of community development in gaming.

Launching a Community

There are several approaches to starting community building: before the release of the app, simultaneously with the release, or after the release. Which one to follow depends on the type of game—a Triple-A project can be promoted before the launch; a mobile Triple-A can be promoted simultaneously. In other cases, it is more appropriate to do it when the audience is responding.

For example, we launched the Puzzle Villa community at the moment of the game's release, when we saw good results and gained a pool of regular players. We realized that we had a base of involved players and that we could develop their length of interaction with the game, and at the same time attract new audiences.

To achieve this goal, it is important not only to regularly feed the community with information about the product, but also to create viral content that touches on current trends and interests of the audience, as well as the game itself. Thanks to this approach, from June 2023 to the end of May 2024, Puzzle Villa's community grew by almost 17.5 thousand people without any major investment in paid user acquisition.

What Goals a Community Helps to Reach

Our Research Results

Over the past six months, we have conducted six major surveys and received 27,000 unique responses from our players. This has allowed us to adjust our strategy in time and to know what users are ready to buy.

We typically ask our audience about their musical, cultural, and other preferences that are indirectly related to our product. We then use this information to create marketing assets to attract new users. In a month, this results in about 50 videos just for social media, not counting creatives for UA and tons of in-game content. 

In our experience, the emotionality of the content increases audience engagement. For example, for Valentine's Day, we asked Puzzle Villa players to share their personal love stories, selected the most touching ones, and used AI to generate a special puzzle pack. As a result, we got a great response from the audience. 

Another lesson from ZiMAD's experience—original content increases the number of people reached. For example, for the Puzzle Villa community, we chose information occasions relevant for our audience—Tea Day, Pistachio Day, and also encouraged people to share photos of their favorite pets. This allows us to stand out from our competitors' content and keep the audience interested.

How to Select a Platform for Your Community

Firstly, it is important to understand your audience: their age, location, and how this affects their preferences. For example, a younger audience may be more active on Discord or Twitch, while a more mature audience may prefer forums or Facebook. 

Hence, the style of interaction may vary from fast, real-time dialogs to measured and long discussions. Discord and Slack allow for in-the-moment communication, instant feedback, and live coverage. Forums or Facebook groups are better for discussions that don't require quick responses.

The platforms' algorithms are usually sharpened for different types of content, and this is something to keep in mind. For example, short, engaging videos are good for TikTok, high-quality images and stories—for Instagram, and longer videos or live broadcasts—for YouTube and Twitch.

Platforms have different features. They can make community moderation easier. Discord, for example, lets you assign roles to community members and create channels for segmentation by interests and membership levels. Each platform also has a different tolerance for integration. If you need to integrate with Twitch or Patreon, Discord is your best bet.

Viral Videos

Let's say you've already decided on your goals and a platform. Now, you need to figure out what type of content to publish. In our experience, viral videos are the best way to reach new audiences on social networks. In 2023, we started working with Shorts on our YouTube channel dedicated to all ZiMAD projects. In the last 365 days, we have gained more than 4.3 million views. 

The algorithms of the platform automatically promote the videos. When we started posting a lot of funny videos about puzzles, people responded more and more with likes, comments, and subscriptions. Gradually, our videos started getting 10K+ views faster and faster. 

Sometimes, we publish content on TikTok where we talk about the features of the game, repeat trends, or make educational videos on topics related to our product. For example, puzzles improve cognitive function of the brain and learning in general, which is what these two topics have in common.

When creating videos, we recommend using humor that reflects your community, like memes are content that evokes strong emotions. It makes you want to share it with your friends, start and end your day by watching it. You can also engage your audience in challenges and encourage them to share their successes. For example, send screenshots of their best lap time or a funny moment.

Your presence on social networks and community development brings your game and your users closer together. It is a win-win situation—players get both relaxation and interesting content, while you receive engaged players and good rates, or even better—new partners and a multiplier for your revenue. The potential of this tool is too good to ignore it!