Connecting with gaming creators: 4 things developers should know

Key Takeaways

[Music] welcome to connecting with gaming creators four things developers should know at the google for games developer summit in 2021 we're doing this virtually so let's cue the crowd let's cue the cheering woo thank you thank you thank you thank you it is great to be here today we have a panel with two youtube gaming creators 8-bit thug and i christine i'm hoping by the end of this session you will walk away with a better understanding of the gaming community on youtube and how you can better connect with them my name is barbara mcdonald and i'm a product lead for youtube paid digital goods but in a previous life when i started at youtube six years ago i worked on our youtube gaming team and in my spare time you can catch me every single tuesday night live streaming on my variety gaming channel hashtag barb tuesdays on on youtube gaming speaking of youtube gaming in 2020 youtube gaming had its biggest year ever okay over 100 billion watch hours of gaming content with over 40 million active gaming channels on youtube those numbers are astounding and live streaming last year especially grew on youtube we had such an incredible year we saw watch time from video game live streams grow to over 10 billion hours with creators such as laser beam mortal courage the donato and typical gamer streaming exclusively on youtube and we saw valkrie grow to become one of the largest female live streamers across all platforms ever since she started exclusively streaming on youtube publishers such as supercell and playstation have been using premieres to generate excitement over major announcements where they can bring together crowds to engage and watch the first showing of a particular video on youtube in a shared experience earlier this year the team behind brawl stars organized a community event called brawl stars brawl talk summer of monsters which attracted over 750 000 peak concurrent viewers making it one of the most successful video games related premieres on youtube to date now let's get into the panel that's enough about youtube gaming let's meet our expert gaming creators we've got 8-bit thug and i christine so give me your 30 second elevator pitch what are your channels all about what type of content do you make how do you engage with your audiences let's start with christine hi so i am a variety streamer slash gameplay er i do let's plays walkthroughs um i play a variety of games from among us to um a little bit of resident evil scary games really frightened me um i love it and i um like nintendo games metopia i'm really loving utopia right now super cute game um and engaging with my audience um through a variety of ways live streaming is one talking to them directly as i'm live streaming um conversating with them super chats kind of intere like um doing special shout outs for that and members and things like that um also through social media i'm connecting and engaging with them on there as well okay thug over to you give me your picture your channel my channel is like more of a purely gaming channel which includes a lot of live streams i also do a lot of uh like you know show ips wherein i'm i've been running some talk shows some around esports uh you know cover esports coverage wherein i talk about specific issues that are related to the country that i come from india like you know where i talk about the things that are happening in gaming in india so i also do a talk show called chacha with agua wherein i talk with different gamers from around india and you know bring about their history where they come from talk about stuff that they don't really talk in their content that they make apart from that i think i've been making great use of ifttt and on screen you know i have developed some really good integrations with regards to super chats and how the graphic packaging and all those stuff for my channel which has really helped me a lot in the way i uh you know interact with my audience definitely super chats and uh you know paying more attention to the chat section has helped me a lot to interact basically i'm using everything that youtube has to offer to interact with my audience like we'd be community post so these i feel every feature has an advantage of its own and everyone should give a shot to every feature actually i love this uh so when i say i work on youtube pay digital goods i actually mean super chat i didn't know you guys were gonna bring up super chat like that this is a great little plug for that so thank you now you both have a really large fan base an audience of gamers can you share a little bit more about your community uh once again let's start with christine um yes so since i am a variety streamer i do have a variety of different members in my audience in regards to age and gender and likes and things like that so um i have the youngest that you can have on youtube i think is 13. and then the oldest that you can have um i think it might be 44 plus as far as the age thing on analytics but um i do have my audience ranges in different periods in their life as well some people are in high school some people are in college um some are other moms i'm a mom that gains so even though that's not my pushing you know that's not what i brand myself as that's who i am and um there are a lot of moms i get dms about hey i'm also a mom that games and i'm 30 something and the fact that i see you makes me feel less cringe about trying to continue it because a lot of people have a stigma about adults playing games and so um i have a very diverse and positive audience that they don't really stand for negativity when we're streaming it's all about fun there might be some trolling but it's all in fun between me and them and then well mostly them making fun of me because i'm not really great at games but i have a lot of fun um and then them laughing when i scream at scary games because i'm terrified but um we're very positive we keep we try not to do any negative things or keep up negativity so someone's negative we try to give them a chance to be positive and then we have to use the band button if they choose not to but um for the most part everybody's pretty cool thank you thug give us tell us more about your audience um my audience comprises of mainly people who are into hardcore gaming or people who want to seek a career in esports the reason being that me being an e-sports athlete uh at the very beginning of my career before i called it quits and switched to more of the entrepreneurial side running an e-sports organization and one of india's biggest talent band agency for gamers managing the likes of popular youtube creators like mortal i mean like i'm the first person to have ever worked with mortal and we still continue to do so and we do actually have a great relation so i believe that my audience is more about people who want to hang around like have fun towards the end of their day because i generally start my streams pretty late like 11 pm my time and then i go on until like 3 a.m so people who just want to have a good laugh towards the end of the day and not into hardcore giving but more about the chats and the fun that we have the conversations so i feel that you know i'm just bringing more of mixture of hardcore gaming but then with which backed by good conversations and entertainment so i think my community is more around that and the age group is pretty similar to what christine said it's more around 11 13 to 45 but yes the median is more around 18 to 24. yes uh key key tip right here everybody in the world games and everybody in the girl in the world watches other people game on youtube now christine um what is it do you think about youtube that makes it such a popular platform for uh mobile gaming content i think accessibility is the biggest thing um there are some things that i learned actually being a content creator that either audience members have told me or other creators have told me is that with mobile gaming um it's really huge in certain areas of the world where uh you know traditional internet infrastructure is not 100 complete but a lot of people have their phones so they're playing games on their phones they're watching things on their phones they're ordering food or doing things on their phones so um i think that accessibility right like everything my life it's on my phone so i think because of that accessibility i think that's why it's so big and huge on youtube and youtube's so easily accessible as well yeah uh thug what drew you to the mobile gaming space um so i've been like a mobile gamer throughout my life and i said i was an esport athlete actually uh for pubg mobile so i mean like i like mobile gaming has been something that has been so close to my heart a major reason being was also where i come from my background i mean like buying a pc uh was not always easy but affording a mobile phone was pretty easy uh back at that time so i guess that is the one reason which gave me time uh which helped me get time out of uh you know like my regular life to you know actually go ahead and play games which eventually turned into a profession so i think for me it's been multiple things you know me trying to find out a leisure time that is not too uh difficult to achieve i mean like not stepping out of my house or maybe not trying to spend too much so i think mobile gaming was my perfect escape to be honest yeah and and what we've seen on youtube gaming at least is a surge in the popularity of mobile gaming content what do you think is causing that um i was going through a particular vlog with state uh which stated that three out of four adults con consume youtube content on their mobile seventy percent close to seventy percent of the watched ask watch hours for youtube comes through uh mobile platforms so i think that's a very big reason it gives the so like just imagine if if you're if i'm a person who's absorbing some content on youtube mobile and if it's a particular mobile game then it's like it it would not be too difficult for me to actually go ahead and try that game if i like that game i mean i could like just close the app and immediately go ahead and download it from either of the play store or the app store so i think that is what helps a lot in conversions which eventually gives a rise to the mobile gaming uh you know scene overall i mean like the the point is the audience need to relate with the content that you're creating and when you're holding a phone in your hand and if you see something that you like and that is immediately accessible to you i mean like what christine said accessibility is the biggest thing so i think that is one thing that definitely helps a lot for the for the mobile gaming space apart from that the user base of youtube definitely ins uh you know attracts a lot of curry uh creators to join in because of the options that they have i mean like you need not be like it's not only the gaming uh audience that we have on youtube we have audience from different genres from different backgrounds that is very unique to the platform like youtube wherein it's not only about live streaming we have people from coming for beauty content as well so the scope of growth and expansion on youtube is really well i mean like we have seen mr beast mr b started from his main channel then he switched on to a mrb's gaming channel so there's so much more that you can do so i think that's the reason why youtube becomes a hotspot for mobile gaming and gaming overall i would say yeah and what do you think is the trend looking into the future where where is mobile gaming going i mean like it's just going upwards we have had crazy numbers coming in recently uh just a couple of weeks back we had the free fire tournament happening which peaked at 4.9 million uh viewers so these are insane numbers we haven't seen those numbers in the biggest of t1 esports so i believe that mobile mobile is the future and the sooner and the faster developers realize this they have a long way to go and we have seen uh recently riot announcing valor and mobile apex and uh ex announcing apex mobile so yes they realize this and i believe that mobile is the future and everyone would soon realize like it's just a matter of time when this thing becomes the mainstream for gaming i think i think i need to start playing some more games on my phone that's what i'm hearing maybe you should now thug we are expecting to have folks in the audience who both develop and market mobile games so let's stay within the mobile game sphere for a little bit what are the top three things they need to understand about the gaming community on youtube and how they can better connect with your audience of gamers um so i believe that developers need to understand that as uh they need to understand about the content that runs on youtube i believe there are three different verticals it's esports it's uh updates the updates that come in game and walkthroughs what i believe that the developer has control over is esports and updates walkthroughs are something that to be honest a developer cannot really control if a person finishes off the game that's it that's the end of the story but esports and updates are something that have worked really well for developers who have taken keen interest on it finest examples would be tencent and garina with free file and pubg mobile and for updates you did mention process i mean like at the brawl talks they have had excellent results in the past same for their creators as well i have been a pubg mobile player throughout my life i have seen so many free fire players from my country total gaming being one of the biggest free fire creators they have had exceptional results and i believe the input that the developer had in that is regular updates and esports i strongly believe that if a developer understands that okay if a creator has a huge fan base the attraction the fan base would have when they actually see that creator go out on a lan event and lift a trophy if we are able to help them with that sort of an ecstasy that's what attracts the audience and actually playing that game i mean like you would always want to i mean like football would not have been that big if you would not have a rivalry between messi and ronaldo like no one cares about your street guys colony boys playing football it's all about you know there's something big to it something on the competitive level i mean like that is what drives the you know the generation that we are addressing to in mobile gaming specially okay actually i want to i want to follow up on that so with mobile gaming viewers um is there anything that's different about this audience on youtube maybe different than um sort of people who consume non-mobile gaming content or is there anything different about youtube audiences versus other social media platforms um to be honest i felt that youtube is a great place for i mean like youtube is a great place for everything to be honest but i have been more of a live streamer throughout my career so i felt that the live streaming experience for mobile gaming is really good and especially uh from my personal experience the place where i come from india has a huge audience base for live streaming so i felt that this is one thing that makes uh youtube and the audience stand out that uh the way the more we can enhance their live streaming experience in terms of maybe drops like recently i saw youtube did it with uh call of duty league and we have also done with pubg mobile in the past those really help a lot so i think this kind of uh collaborations help a lot for the audience for the creator for the developer but this is what makes youtube stand out i mean like the livestream experience that we are able that we or the platform itself is being able to provide to the audience we cater okay cool i'm gonna switch back over to christine and ask a similar question so thug works primarily within the mobile gaming space and you are more of a variety gamer so similar questions for you outside of mobile gaming so in this variety gaming nintendo gaming uh sphere that you are in what should game developers publishers and marketers know about the gaming community on youtube um like just like thug was saying um updates is a huge a huge thing um that's something that you can if you want to fall back on an example would be fall guys when fall guys came out they the surge was not expected for them and so they had to play catch up really quickly with trying to update their servers updating their um styles and their maps and all of that to keep up with the with the speed at which they were kind of rising so definitely i would say updating your game um have things on the ready just like that was saying having events and having these um these moments will keep adding excitement for your game keep wanting people to engage in your game if they know that they're a part of something especially now with the way that the times have been we don't know when this is going to end right and a lot of people want to connect with other people so having events like um community events and things like that that are in connection with creators that they're watching the creator play this game that they love they join they play the game and having this communal type of experience via the internet is is definitely huge so that's something to definitely keep in mind yeah so how can uh people who make video games how can they connect with you as a content creator to run these types of virtual events i would say reaching out um email dming um those two like on social media whichever one works best for you linkedin i wouldn't i wouldn't do put all my eggs in that basket because not everybody checks their linkedin okay but like twitter pro tip gaming creators don't necessarily check linkedin okay right not on a regular basis maybe once a year so um try to stay on social media um that's the other thing have an active social media make it um make it appear or be accessible to your audience via social media so maybe tweeting kind of like among us does every now and again among us just tweet something funny it's not necessarily a game update but they're sharing stuff from their community their insomniac games does that as well especially with spider-man stuff they repost things they appear or they are very engaged with their community and you definitely want to um you know keep that going so i would say reaching out to creators on social media engaging with your community emailing them those are the the best ways to kind of group together and come up with like events okay cool uh thug i believe you've actually partnered with uh with some mobile game developers um similarly to what christine is talking about uh could you sort of walk us through what one of these campaigns would have looked like right i went like i worked with couple of uh more than a couple of developers tencent activation supercell i've had some lovely experiences with tencent and supercell in terms of content and content that we were able to create and you know deliverables that we were able to achieve the biggest key takeaway of why those campaigns were successful i think in case of supercell it was a very cohesive decision with regards to the campaign that we want to run i mean like i had the flexibility to actually decide if you want to do this and you know having a say in the campaign because as creators we understand best what our audience needs us like we understand we can help with that bridging the gap between the developer and the needs of the audience so that definitely helps i think it's more of the community feedback that supercell takes really well i have seen uh their community managers super active on twitter taking away uh you know feedbacks in a very first and like in a very direct manner so that really helps a lot with tencent the thing was a little bit different but the campaigns that they used to create their community or marketing as yesterday would be exactly what we need so i believe that for them it was more of a detailed market study understanding the markets really well but i felt a campaign should be more content driven and more driven towards the needs of the creator rather than fulfilling the needs of the marketing as a whole i mean like you know if a creator can modify the campaign or have a flexibility over how the campaign needs to go the results could be way better than brands can even uh developers can even expect so i think working handy then like christine said uh you know outreach community outreach greater outreach and working hand in hand with the creators really help a lot in getting the best out of the campaign can you give us some more specifics so you mentioned you did you you have actually partnered with uh with a game publisher here what what what was can you give me a concrete example of what that campaign looked like right i mean like a very fine example could be uh what we did with supercell it was for the game broadcast um so for process we did a campaign with three or four creators which included myself it was mortal it was scout and a couple of popular faces from india uh so i still remember like i'll just talk about the impact part of that campaign i remember when i was streaming so since my name is eight bit thug and in process we have a character called 8-bit i did not have that uh so while i was streaming live i'm pretty sure the team was watching over seeing it and i said that i wish i could have the 8-bit uh character with me and they sent it uh through the inbox like on the inbox i had it on my mail that this character is unlocked so i mean that the impact that it had on my audience like it was such a personal experience i could give them and see that the developer cares about us and just imagine people who are like i would say die hard fanboys they would instantly go and say okay for thug we'll do this i think that is what an impact campaign looks like and i re uh and i if i'm not wrong i can recall i made a clan immediately and i had like more like i had the cap uh fulfilled it if it was 50 people who could join the clan i had instantly 50 people join it from the live stream so i believe that those kind of campaigns which have and also we did a lot more with pubg mobile for their different uh updates uh those have been very impactful i mean like we have had millions of numbers in terms of views and conversions i'm pretty sure like you know these campaigns have like there's so many more campaigns with these two companies uh with this two developers that have been so impactful but this particular with the supercell one was a little bit surprising and you know i felt like the most contented doing that because the experience overall that i could provide to my uh audience and the experience that i had doing it was just amazing and i still remember the feedback they were pretty much happy with how it all went and i loved that you were able to sort of use your audience and make content that they found really engaging and they found it engaging enough that as you mentioned they went and they installed the game and then they started they joined your clan and like filled up your clan right this happened like on a live stream so you know i mean like we have had those so i think that's what i said you know if we see that if we can bridge the gap between the audience and the developer if the content creator pays a private role then definitely every campaign can be super successful in terms of reach conversions or any roi that the developer is looking for majorly it's mostly it's installed uh you know from what we understand but i think it can be but it needs to be long term also i think another aspect to such campaigns are it needs to be long-lived what i felt is one-offs don't really work really well you could hire you could get a very big creator to do a dedicated video or integration for once in a year that does not really go well when they see that the relation is being established throughout a period of time that's when things work really well i mean like you need to be patient and a little bit lower futuristic approach and a long-term approach to get those results coming in yeah it's similar feedback that we give to uh to creators on youtube which is be consistent with your content uh and so it's a similar type of thing in terms of a game campaign um you might be doing you know it might be several campaigns that you're doing sort of with the same game publisher game developers uh that's really gonna help engage with your audience and get them to hopefully install the game start playing it more bringing their friends into it and then and watching more of your content absolutely all right well that is sort of the end of all of the questions that i had for the two of you i want to thank you very much for being here with us today before i wrap things up is there anything any remaining words that you would like to say to uh our audience out there um i would say hey thank you for first letting me be a part of this um and if there's any take away from this i would say community community is the biggest thing engage with the community and creators and like doug was saying like having a consistent campaign that's definitely something that you want to do if you want to help with conversions and having more people engage and download your game thank you doug any any remaining last minute words from you um yeah first of all it's been an absolute pleasure to address uh such a big community you know of developers uh first of all thank you to everyone for having me here i would say like christine perfectly pointed out everything that i had as a key takeaway community and creators you know the connect the bridge you know bridging the gap is what's the need of the market right now and if that's done perfectly it work it would work out really well for all of us i think that's the key takeaway excellent well thank you to christine thank you to 8-bit thug for answering all of these questions today thank you for watching this and uh have a great rest of your google for game developer summit 2021 signing off bye [Music] you