Devcoms: A Study of Videogame Developers' Community-Building Rhetorics Leading to Launch

Nathaniel Francis Golding; Lorenzo Hu; Chris Ge Lin; Irfan  Kanat

Devcoms: A Study of Videogame Developers' Community-Building Rhetorics Leading to Launch

Nathaniel Francis Golding, Lorenzo Hu, Chris Ge Lin, Irfan Kanat

Institut for Digitalisering

Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Konferencebidrag i proceedings › Forskning › peer review

Abstrakt

Competition in the gaming market is fierce. Yet, Independent (“Indie”) Game Developers (IGDs) with limited resources managed to carve out an existence. In the IGD scene, the social media platform Twitter is considered ideal for intra-industry marketing and community building. In this study, 31 indie games and 17,599 tweets from official IGD accounts were coded and analysed according to their targeted audience (Broad vs. Narrow), message (Inclusionary vs. Exclusionary), and timing. Our findings indicate that commercially successful games converge on a pattern of rhetoric we dubbed ‘The SHuFL Model’, consisting of four phases: 1) a phase of ‘Seeding’ tweets to raise discoverability; 2) a ‘Feeding’ phase of active community engagement; 3) a ‘Leveraging’ phase where network effects are leveraged for a successful launch; 4) an optional ‘Hunting’ round of proactive solicitation during the ‘Seeding’ phase. ‘The SHuFL Model’ can be utilized by “grassroots” marketers to overcome platform gatekeeping.

Originalsprog	Engelsk
Titel	Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS)
Antal sider	15
Udgivelsessted	Atlanta, GA
Forlag	Association for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)
Publikationsdato	2022
Artikelnummer	17
Status	Udgivet - 2022
Begivenhed	The 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2022: New Horizons in Digitally United Societies - Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara (UVT) / West University of Timişoara (WUT), Timisoara, Rumænien Varighed: 19 jun. 2022 → 24 jun. 2022 Konferencens nummer: 30 https://ecis2022.eu/

Konference

Konference	The 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2022
Nummer	30
Lokation	Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara (UVT) / West University of Timişoara (WUT)
Land/Område	Rumænien
By	Timisoara
Periode	19/06/2022 → 24/06/2022
Internetadresse	https://ecis2022.eu/

Navn	Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems
ISSN	0000-0034

Emneord

Brand communities
Community building
SHuFL
Game development
Indie developer
Social media marketing
Qualitative
Rhetoric analysis
Thematic analysis

Adgang til dokumentet

http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=ecis2022_rpLicens: Ikke-specificeret

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Citationsformater

Golding, N. F., Hu, L., Lin, C. G., & Kanat, I. (2022). Devcoms: A Study of Videogame Developers' Community-Building Rhetorics Leading to Launch. I Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) [17] Association for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=ecis2022_rp

Golding, Nathaniel Francis ; Hu, Lorenzo ; Lin, Chris Ge et al. / Devcoms : A Study of Videogame Developers' Community-Building Rhetorics Leading to Launch. Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). Atlanta, GA : Association for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL), 2022. (Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems).

@inproceedings{bb68c25194c14f49af71b1c196aa830c,

title = "Devcoms: A Study of Videogame Developers' Community-Building Rhetorics Leading to Launch",

abstract = "Competition in the gaming market is fierce. Yet, Independent (“Indie”) Game Developers (IGDs) with limited resources managed to carve out an existence. In the IGD scene, the social media platform Twitter is considered ideal for intra-industry marketing and community building. In this study, 31 indie games and 17,599 tweets from official IGD accounts were coded and analysed according to their targeted audience (Broad vs. Narrow), message (Inclusionary vs. Exclusionary), and timing. Our findings indicate that commercially successful games converge on a pattern of rhetoric we dubbed {\textquoteleft}The SHuFL Model{\textquoteright}, consisting of four phases: 1) a phase of {\textquoteleft}Seeding{\textquoteright} tweets to raise discoverability; 2) a {\textquoteleft}Feeding{\textquoteright} phase of active community engagement; 3) a {\textquoteleft}Leveraging{\textquoteright} phase where network effects are leveraged for a successful launch; 4) an optional {\textquoteleft}Hunting{\textquoteright} round of proactive solicitation during the {\textquoteleft}Seeding{\textquoteright} phase. {\textquoteleft}The SHuFL Model{\textquoteright} can be utilized by “grassroots” marketers to overcome platform gatekeeping.",

keywords = "Brand communities, Community building, SHuFL, Game development, Indie developer, Social media marketing, Qualitative, Rhetoric analysis, Thematic analysis, Brand communities, Community building, SHuFL, Game development, Indie developer, Social media marketing, Qualitative, Rhetoric analysis, Thematic analysis",

author = "Golding, {Nathaniel Francis} and Lorenzo Hu and Lin, {Chris Ge} and Irfan Kanat",

year = "2022",

language = "English",

series = "Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS)",

publisher = "Association for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)",

note = "The 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2022 : New Horizons in Digitally United Societies, ECIS2022 ; Conference date: 19-06-2022 Through 24-06-2022",

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Golding, NF, Hu, L, Lin, CG & Kanat, I 2022, Devcoms: A Study of Videogame Developers' Community-Building Rhetorics Leading to Launch. i Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS)., 17, Association for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL), Atlanta, GA, Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems, The 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2022, Timisoara, Rumænien, 19/06/2022. < http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=ecis2022_rp>

Devcoms : A Study of Videogame Developers' Community-Building Rhetorics Leading to Launch. / Golding, Nathaniel Francis; Hu, Lorenzo; Lin, Chris Ge et al.

Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). Atlanta, GA : Association for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL), 2022. 17 (Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems).

Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Konferencebidrag i proceedings › Forskning › peer review

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