Ask A Game Dev! - We Are Your Friend's Uncle

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Agoat: Dec 4, 2012; I AM BAD AT GAMES; Lipstick Apathy

How do people get into community management roles? I know it's not just funny social media posting in these positions and it's very stressful, but I've always wanted to help build communities and be a resource to them.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2021 18:36

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:39

Agoat: Dec 4, 2012; I AM BAD AT GAMES; Lipstick Apathy

Thank you for your posts, y'all. I was nervous to ask, but y'all honestly have me feeling more confident than ever that I'll be able to one day take on such a role. I've been working on growing my own slice of the Halo community, I'm really excited learning that's a step in the right direction.

Sorry for the late reply. Ironically enough Infinite came out and that has been a huge chunk of my time. (mostly outside the game.)

# ¿ Nov 27, 2021 09:36

Agoat: Dec 4, 2012; I AM BAD AT GAMES; Lipstick Apathy

MJBuddy posted:

My own take here is a lot of value is probably seen if you keep your communities productive/constructive and non-toxic.

Dev teams want to interact with legitimate critiques of their games. They want players to be happy, and if you're showing that you can keep communities in positive lanes of conversation vs leading mobs and whatnot, that's a corporate value add.

The infinite patience required to do that? Oh man our communities teams deserve medals (and big paychecks).

I feel good knowing I'm walking the right path. I work to push conversation, and anytime someone gets a little heated in our community I de-escalate and keep conversation focused on the issue at hand.

When would you say someone is "ready" to pursue a career in this?

# ¿ Nov 29, 2021 22:04

Agoat: Dec 4, 2012; I AM BAD AT GAMES; Lipstick Apathy

I Love You! posted:

Start applying immediately. Get practice now, don't wait for the perfect portfolio. Even if you have the perfect portfolio the odds of being the one resume they pick out of a pile are relatively slim until you have a bunch of industry connections, so you should start rolling those dice early and often. Someone might like what they see.

Really, really important early advice when you're looking to break into the industry that I've seen hold true for a lot of people:

1. Apply for contract roles in addition to full time. DO NOT expect those contract roles to turn into full time positions (the game industry is notorious for not converting contractors) but a 6-month contract in a Community role is enough to leverage into another job at another company. Companies LOVE to hire Community on contract because headcount for Community is hard to come by at many orgs
2. Make sure your resume includes your community/volunteer/moderation experience in a prominent location. I'd even consider slapping it into the middle of your work experience if it's something you did seriously for a while - as long as you clearly label it volunteer or don't try to pass it off as a paid gig. You want to make sure they read it and if it's stashed away in "interests and hobbies" or something no one is going to see it. People dramatically undervalue their hobbyist experiences and don't list them prominently when they directly relate to a job or industry they're trying to break into
3. Make sure your resume has something interesting or unique or weird early on that a bored hiring manager or recruiter can latch onto. You're going to have trouble standing out from the crowd on merit alone early on, but that doesn't mean you can't catch their eye and make them want to talk to you
4. Consider chatting with recruiters on LinkedIn who are hiring for the roles you're interested in, if you can make any connections
5. Reach out to existing community managers if possible and ask them about their roles and even specific jobs you're interested in. Don't be annoying, but they're literally paid to be there to interact with the community and this is a valid area of community interest!

I broke into the games industry as an esports manager/product role at Blizzard despite a very inconsistent work history and really stiff competition by grinding it out over 6 months of applications and catching a hiring manager's eye with a unique resume that focused on all the non-work stuff I'd done that made me a great fit for the role rather than focus on the holes. I've seen it happen for other people and in an industry as competitive as gaming, you should consider shooting the angles a bit unless you're well-connected because there's a ton of people submitting near-identical applications.

Certainly a scary thought diving in right away, but I'll do it!! I'll update my resume today and do my best!

# ¿ Nov 30, 2021 19:03

Agoat: Dec 4, 2012; I AM BAD AT GAMES; Lipstick Apathy

MJBuddy posted:

Echo'ing above, just start now. If you run a discord, that's nice. Everything community has a discord/Twitter angle. Talk about it's growth, how active it is, do you run events and are people coming back to those events (retention). Doesn't need to be eSports and such, just like, I know you worked on Halo communities here and of you had a weekly game or something that was organized through your discord,even if you didn't organize it but just created the platform to let people go, that's good stuff!

I'll definitely include Anchor 9 with my resume. It's really grown a lot lately, I'm actually really happy it came to mind.

My goal was 343, but they aren't hiring any community positions at the moment. I'll be on the lookout for other opportunities, too. Truth be told, being able to focus on a game community full-time would really be awesome. (Even though lol I can see it can be rough with angry players)

# ¿ Dec 2, 2021 07:33

Agoat: Dec 4, 2012; I AM BAD AT GAMES; Lipstick Apathy

I finally put my first application out there. I put together some weapons for Halo Infinite and my Twitter ended up exploding, I figured I was doing something right and I'd shoot my shot.

Unfortunately, I just got the E-mail that I don't qualify, which isn't entirely unexpected.

And while I am a little disappointed I didn't even get an interview... I do feel incredibly energized, and I've found something new to love about games. I'm gonna keep working hard, I'll get there one day.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2022 08:04

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:39

Agoat: Dec 4, 2012; I AM BAD AT GAMES; Lipstick Apathy

BallisticClipboard posted:

How did you guys get past the anxiety of applying to a company? I'm fresh out of college with a game design degree and 3 awful game projects on my itch. I never focused in any role while in school so I feel so very unprepared for any job. My friends in my game dev are basically telling me to shoot my shot but I am terrified of flaming out spectacularly in any interview. What did you guys do to feel ready?

I'm not a gamedev (yet!) but I posted in this thread before applying to 343i a few times. I think my last rejection was... a month ago? Probably doesn't help I'm looking for Community-based positions, I have to imagine everyone with a Twitter account thinks they can be a social media pro.

Applying in itself is a milestone. I realized there was a point in my life where I wouldn't even apply to these positions. Now I drop my application in, just to see how far I can get. First application was rejected automatically exactly 24 hours later. The second one made it a few days later, maybe someone even looked at it!

Understand that taking that chance and being vulnerable to rejection is strength in itself. Even if you don't get it, it's still very brave to try.

Agoat fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jun 22, 2022

# ¿ Jun 22, 2022 19:03

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