Hi, I'm Victoria! Join my Community Dev Newsletter for insight into games marketing, social, and community management. Get actionable tips, a skill testing question, and a roundup of resources straight to your inbox every month.
Balatro's post-launch marketing ✨ Community Dev Newsletter #38
What's your favorite Balatro joker? Victoria Tran (OH SNAP!) [Victoria editor note: Lmaooooo.] Outside of that, my heart belongs to the Hologram joker because I like building decks full of cards, just to play a single one, but my brain always goes for Hanging Chad. Also Lucky Cat…I LOVE Lucky Cat.
In broad terms, how do you decide on a game's post-launch strategy? I assume not every game you guys work on is perfect for collabs, for example. How do you keep that continued interest, even if new content isn't coming out? As we love to say in this industry…"it depends”. We have several titles that are very “Road map content” heavy like Abiotic Factor and Darkwater. For those titles, the content is the lifeblood of the game. For The Rise of the Golden Idol the updates are now available in a “Detective Pass” because we learned from Case of the Golden Idol that fans just always wanted more and were showing incredible attachment rates on the DLC, so bundling all the content up on a season pass so they can buy it all at once made a lot of sense. Balatro was an entirely different beast as that game launched pretty evergreen when it comes to content (Still, new content is being worked on, I promise) so the after launch work was heavily focused on “fun stuff for the fans” while at the same time deliberately being “Hey, don’t forget about us” all year. Games launching early in the year sometimes get overlooked during GOTY conversations, so that was definitely deliberate and…I think that worked PRETTY well.
Are there any stats you find helpful to track when it comes to gauging interest? E.g. for collabs, is it based off the "rule of cool" (the dev likes the game), player requests, or checking to see if the game that wants to collab is popping off?
The current collabs are pretty much all started with “rule of cool” but there is SOME thought behind it. Generally, if a Balatro player is even vaguely familiar with a collab game, they should recognize the characters on the cards. For bigger games, this is often easier to achieve, so we also want to mix them with smaller indie titles that can benefit from being… Among Them. [Victoria's editor note: BOOOOOOOOOOOO.]
My favorite part of all these collabs is going into the Discords of those smaller titles when a Friends of Jimbo drops and seeing everyone flip out about the collab. It’s the best.
How do you balance the priorities of marketing/PR and the developer?
I think that over the last two years we’ve build a relationship with LocalThunk where we usually land on the same page on the activations we want to do. We occasionally have some ideas or collaborations that look fantastic on paper, but don’t pass the LT vibecheck, but then we easily let them go as well.
As a publisher, the relationship with your developers should be front and center, because you can’t do this without them, so when Thunk is happy, we are happy.
There will always be scenarios where we butt heads though, like when I am inevitably going to beat him to Completionist++ IN HIS OWN GAME. He’s gonna be so mad, it’s gonna be delicious. [Victoria's editor note: He did it.]
Are there any lessons you've learned that you think more indie devs should take to heart when working on their own games?
I think the biggest lesson I would have for everyone dipping their toes into the PR/influencer side when launching their game is “Nobody is going to help you sell your game”.
Media and streamers are also businesses that are trying to keep the lights on (especially in the current market) so you need to be aware that editorial time (or streaming slots) are limited and need to have a certain level of ROI before it becomes interesting for them to cover your game.
Especially when talking about organic coverage, you should always approach repping your game looking for a win-win situation.
Will covering this game get clicks/viewers? If it only benefits you, you’ll likely have a rough time getting your game out there.
Sometimes that means you have to become popular before you can become popular, which can be quite challenging, so really hone in on your audience and community early. You can generate chatter and build community by working with smaller creators, which can lead to more social chatters, which gives media more incentive to dedicate editorial time, which in turn makes bigger streamers pay more attention, who will then bring their own communities into the mix, etc etc. In my GDC talk on Balatro I called this the “Wheel of Attention” and while it’s sometimes difficult to set it in motion, once it starts spinning, you’re off to the races.
Victoria's Editor Note: Wow it's actually the FIDGET SPINNER OF ATTENTION. Not the WHEEL. HE LIED.
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And that's all from Wout! Big thanks to him for the Content™. For more, you can follow him on Bluesky and tell him I say hi.
Community Activity 📝
Every month we do a skill testing exercise together! This one was submitted by a community member - thank you!! Have an activity idea or want to ask a question?Submit one anonymously.
The question:
What advice would you give a community lead who is joining an indie team that has never had a marketing team before? (i.e., you are the only person doing the marketing work, and there was no designated person before you were brought on.)
Feel free to email me back with your answer - I always respond. Mine will be in the next newsletter!
Last week's question:
How do you determine if you should jump in during a heated Discord conversation?
At its best, a community should be able to discuss kinda heated topics amongst themselves without a community manager always needing to mitigate. So I'll usually only jump in when it comes to two scenarios:
It's hit a critical mass where there is sustained, non-stop talk about it for awhile. If a post or complain has not gained traction outside of their immediate circles (i.e. just posted by the same people repeatedly), it slightly indicates it's more of a loud group versus a large majority. You may also see some community members pushing back against the take. This doesn't mean it needs to be ignored, but just that it's worth considering what the larger interests of the players are. Sometimes you have to decide as a community manager when chiming in might just reheat a conversation, when you could be spending that time instead trying to tackle the core problem.
It's causing A LOT of riled up emotions between members to the point where even the mods are unable to keep a lid on it. If you can help steer the direction of the convo via the mods, always try that first. Access to the dev is a nice-to-have, not a right, and they'll have diff expectations for you VS a moderator. A tip here if you're responding in Discord: do not start typing in the chat before knowing what your response is going to be, or else they'll spot "X is typing..." and now you're locked into one of two situations: You have to respond, because they saw you typing. They now have assumptions of what this will be.If you do not respond, they'll make assumptions as to why you're not.
Obviously this is very generic - there's no bullet proof answer and requires your judgement and contextual clues to best handle heated situations!
Community Chatter 💬
Here are the interesting and helpful things I've seen this past month.
Special Effect - Community Fundraising Coordinator (Charlbury, UK)
Also I'll be at PAX West this year - if anyone is submitting a panel and needs a panelist to talk community, marketing, or silly goofy things... hit me up. :)
Success through shenanigans with community management.
Hi, I'm Victoria! Join my Community Dev Newsletter for insight into games marketing, social, and community management. Get actionable tips, a skill testing question, and a roundup of resources straight to your inbox every month.
