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Anti-Social Media? Why the Humble Newsletter is Your Studio’s Most Powerful Channel in 2025
For game studios looking to achieve awareness around their games, the social media landscape of 2025 is fraught with black-box algorithms, toxic communities and the agendas of self-interested billionaires. Elon Musk’s tumultuous ownership of Twitter – now X – has spurred on an exodus from the once glorious platform, leaving game devs scrambling to find audiences amidst a patchwork of other platforms. Engagement has never been more challenging or unpredictable.
In this talk, I’ll explore why traditional social media is no longer the reliable growth engine it once was. Rather than these one-to-many platforms, one-to-one communication - the modest newsletter or mailing list - has seen a resurgence in popularity, and is more effective today than its ever been.
I'll discuss how owning your audience through an email list ensures consistent, algorithm-free communication. Unlike fleeting posts on social media, newsletters allow the opportunity to tailor your communication to the individual, providing a space to build trust and share a window into your studio's work that other platforms simply don't allow. One-to-one communication isn't without its constraints and challenges, of course, and we'll address these along the way too.
In this talk, I’ll offer tangible steps to launching, growing and bringing your mailing list into the heart of your studio’s communications. We'll look at lead magnets, open rates and deeper integrations to enrich the game-experience in ways other platforms don't allow for. In today’s fractured digital landscape, the humble newsletter is your studio’s most powerful weapon. I'll share how to wield it effectively.
Session Takeaway
- Why one-to-one communication via a mailing list is so powerful in 2025
- Reliable methods for improving your open rate, and optimising your content strategy
- Strategies to grow your subscriber base via landing pages, lead-magnets and other incentive schemes
- How to take your newsletter to the next level via automations and integrations
Building Communities That Run Themselves
How do you build a thriving community from the ground up? What does it take to attract players, keep them engaged, and ultimately transition from a publisher-led space to a player-driven ecosystem?
Join Emma Bodie-Smith, Community Manager at Playstack, as she explores the community-building journey – from laying the foundation to allowing it to run itself. Using examples from Balatro and Abiotic Factor, Emma will discuss the strategy behind setting up community platforms that attract and retain players while paving the way for an organic, player-led future.
Learn how to build a community from scratch, including key tactics for attracting players and keeping them engaged through meaningful interactions and valuable content. Discover why it’s crucial to consolidate your audience early on by providing a central gathering space and how gradually relinquishing control leads to a more authentic, active community.
We’ll explore the benefits of stepping back, the challenges of sustaining player interest, and practical tips for navigating the transition from publisher to player-led spaces. Learn the signs of success – when fans generate their own content, keep conversations alive, and attract new players without your involvement.
Walk away with a fresh perspective on community building and the confidence to nurture a player-led ecosystem that supports your game and empowers your players.
Session Takeaway
- Learn how choosing the right platform and tools, early engagement tactics, and setting the tone play a role in attracting players to your community
- Discover how to build loyalty with consistent, meaningful interactions whilst balancing official announcements with organic contributions
- Explore the early signs of success when a community is ready to transition from publisher-led to player-led
Earning Gamers Attention: A Deep Dive into the Marketing Creative for Still Wakes the Deep
A case study session dissecting the successful launch campaign for Still Wakes The Deep in 2024 – sharing creative insights from producing the trailers for this hugely popular game. This session will be hosted by developers from The Chinese Room, who created this haunting narrative horror game, along with artists from Big Farmer, the creative production studio who worked with them to create a trio of increasingly unsettling trailers for the launch.
This small panel from The Chinese Room and Big Farmer will take a deep dive into the whole process, covering subjects from the creative strategy, production (onboarding and collaborating with an external studio), creative direction (nailing the audio and visual approach of the trailers) or technical (how we built the creative in UE5).
The game achieved great commercial success, scooping over 50 industry award nominations as well as the trailers themselves winning some global creative awards. The title earned fantastic reviews by the players along with industry press, including The New York Times and The Guardian. This session would offer inspiration and hands on advice for dev teams on creating truly impactful marketing campaign creative for their games.
Session Takeaway
- In-engine cinematic high-level techniques & how to work with external cinematic artists
- Making impactful creative that stands out in a crowded market
- The significance of audio excellence for engaging audience emotions
From Outreach to Impact: Leveraging Influencers in Games Marketing
Influencer marketing has become an essential part of game marketing, but navigating it effectively can be a challenge. This session answers some of the most frequently asked questions about working with influencers, from identifying the right creators to maximising limited budgets. We'll explore the best outreach strategies, the trade-offs between mass outreach and curated partnerships and how to integrate influencers into your marketing campaigns for mutual benefit.
We’ll also discuss current platform trends, including the evolving role of Twitch, TikTok and YouTube and how shifts in social media impact influencer marketing strategies. You’ll gain insight into when and how to pay influencers, how to leverage organic reach effectively and best practices for setting clear expectations in your partnerships.
Whether you're a marketing lead, developer, or community manager looking to make influencer marketing work for your game, this session will equip you with the knowledge and tools to build impactful campaigns. Expect practical frameworks and actionable insights you can implement immediately.
Session Takeaway
- How to find the right paid and organic influencers for your game, even in niche markets
- Practical strategies for outreach, relationship building and campaign integration
- Budgeting insights, including maximising small influencer marketing budgets effectively
Meme Your Way to Success
The gaming industry is rapidly evolving with the rise of User-Generated Content (UGC) platforms like Roblox This shift necessitates new marketing strategies distinct from traditional game marketing. Attendances will able to understand the challenges of UGC games publishing and how to leverage new marketing strategies like adopting meme content to drive engagement of their live-ops games.
Session Takeaway
Walking out of the room, attendees will:
- Have a solid understanding of how to create a successful marketing strategy for their UGC games
- See real-world examples of successful campaigns
- Learn the right questions to ask when things may go wrong
Product / Market Fit – What Does it Mean and How Do We Achieve it?
Over 18,000 new games were released in 2024. More than 90% of these new products failed - the reason is more often than not a lack of understanding of product / market fit and specific consumer needs. The essential truth is that it’s easier to make the right product for the market than it is to find a market for your product. To do so, the creative efforts need to align with a commercially viable outcome from the earliest stage of production.
This session looks step by step at what questions you should ask at what time in the lifecycle, and how research and data provide actionable insights to game design to ensure it has the right player segment focus. This will build a firm foundation for your commercial strategy, enabling direction for your go-to-market plan, and help optimise your live service roadmap.
Session Takeaway
- Alignment of Creative Vision & Commercial Realities
- A unified brand perception unites all teams behind one vision/ direction
- The game and marketing communication are aligned on the same audience and address key player motivations and benefits
Social Media and Vertical Video: Catching Attention in Seconds
This session aims to catch the attention of the masses. Social media is a constantly evolving beast, and more than ever it’s important to know how to stop someone in their tracks to pay attention to your project while they’re confronted with a million other pieces of media demanding their eyes.
Social media is an even playing field at its core but that means anyone can play. If you want to compete you’re not only on that playing field with the best of the best, but a sea of other content. We’ll explore trends, why they work, what to learn from the first second of successful vertical videos, and what you can learn from your doomscrolling every day.
This session will also dissect the parts of TikTok you may, as a user, be unfamiliar with. The importance of sounds, hashtags, post timing, thumbnails, captions, and more. Success on social media isn’t totally random or based on luck - there are foundations laid beneath many viral videos that as a user you wouldn’t recognise, but as a creator, you’ll need to know. Let’s set your accounts up for success.
Session Takeaway
- How to analysis the ways in which TikTok content is appealing to the viewer, and thinking critically about how that can apply to their use of the platform
- How to capitalise on a game’s aesthetic choice/history/subject matter to lead your social strategy
- Thinking critically about how to make your content the best it can be within the ‘rules’ of vertical video success on TikTok and beyond
